Phil Mickelson's 63 has him believing in golf gods at Troon

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TROON, Scotland -- It was in. It was in the hole as sure as you've ever seen any putt drop directly in the hole. The streak was over. History was made.

In the 157th year of major championships, in the 437th ever contested, the first 62 had finally been posted, punctuated by this 16-foot birdie putt that was right in the center of the final hole.

Except, then it wasn't.

Instead, the ball inexplicably dove slightly right just inches before it reached the cup, then cruelly skirted its edge and stayed mockingly out. History was still made, sure. But the real history, the stuff we'd held our collective breaths for, would have to wait.

In the moments immediately after watching his attempt, Phil Mickelson struggled to convey his emotions. He stared blankly for a little while. Shook his head. Forced a smile. He even admitted that he felt like crying.

Rather than the first 62, Mickelson shot the 28th score of 63 in a major during the first round of the 145th Open Championship at Royal Troon on Thursday. There is a great divide between those numbers, a massive difference between joining a club and starting a new one.

There must be an answer, though. There must be a reason why so many players have come so close, only to feel like crying afterward.

Mickelson pondered this reason, then claimed he'd figured it out.

"Well, it was obvious right there," he said. "There's a curse, because that ball should have been in. If there wasn't a curse, that ball would have been in and I would have had that 62."

The golf gods work in mysterious ways, but their vision is clear. From the game's early beginnings right through Thursday afternoon, no player has posted 62 in a major. That's not a coincidence. That's some weird, wicked witchcraft. Here in the land of the Loch Ness Monster, consider it just another unexplained mystery of the mythical world.

Chances are that you've probably heard a little about the first 63 posted in a major. That was the final-round score of Johnny Miller during the 1973 U.S. Open at Oakmont, and while his card did include a bogey, posting a 62 was never really in the cards that day.

Since then, though, the barrier has been reached but not passed by an amalgamation of legends and journeymen, bombers and ball-strikers, eventual winners, contenders and pretenders.

The 63 Club includes Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Nick Faldo, Greg Norman and Tiger Woods; it also includes Bruce Crampton, Mark Hayes, Jodie Mudd, Michael Bradley and Hiroshi Iwata. None of them have a worthy explanation for why they didn't go one stroke lower, why one more putt during those rounds didn't trickle into the cup for an eventual 62.

"It makes you believe in the golf gods," insisted Brad Faxon, who posted his 63 in the final round of the 1995 PGA Championship.

How else do you explain these stories?

Nicklaus had a short putt on the final hole of the 1980 PGA Championship first round to shoot the magic number. He somehow missed. When asked about it last year, he still sounded bitter: "I choked."

Nick Price had a birdie putt to close his third round in the 1986 Masters. It flirted with every inch of the cup, but failed to drop.

Same goes for Woods, whose own close call in the second round of the 2007 PGA Championship was thwarted when a final birdie attempt went halfway down the hole and inexplicably popped out.

Mickelson now knows exactly how every one of them feels. Any sense of elation for going low, for tying an all-time major championship record, was offset in the moment by a flurry of less envious emotions. Like so many before him, Mickelson was desperately close to owning his own piece of history. Instead, he'll share the honor -- and the disappointment -- with so many others.

As he attempted to rationalize how close he'd come to history and what it would have meant and just how that damned little golf ball didn't drop into that final hole, Mickelson was asked whether he believes in the golf gods, those all-powerful higher beings who seemingly control the fate of the game's greatest players.

He flashed that forced smile again, just briefly. Then he answered.

"I didn't," he said. "But I do now."