Phil Mickelson stands alone — not just at the top of the PGA Championship leaderboard, but in a very special way. Father Time did not hold him back this weekend.

Phil Mickelson, one month short of his 51st birthday, won the 2021 PGA Championship on Sunday at the Kiawah Island Ocean Course in South Carolina, becoming the oldest man to win a major golf championship. He is the only man to win a major after turning 50 years old. He won his sixth major title, tying for 12th on the all-time list.

In 2009, a 59-year-old Tom Watson came within one putt of winning the British Open, but Stewart Cink beat him in a four-hole playoff. Golf finally has a major champion in his 50s, older than Jack Nicklaus when the Golden Bear won the 1986 Masters, and older than the second-oldest major champion on record, 48-year-old Julius Boros at the 1968 PGA Championship. Phil Mickelson has topped them all.

Tiger Woods is 45, so he will have a chance to win a major in his 50s in the back end of the 2020s. For now, though, Phil Mickelson has something entirely to himself. Tiger doesn't have it. Nicklaus doesn't have it. Watson doesn't have it. No one else has it.

Mickelson benefited from over-par rounds from his closest pursuers on Sunday. Multiple major champion Brooks Koepka began the day one shot behind Mickelson but slapped the ball all over the Kiawah Island course, falling to two under par for the tournament before grabbing a few strokes back with a pair of late birdies to finish at 4-under 284 for the event, tied with Louis Oosthuizen in second place.

Mickelson had a five-shot lead (-8) on the back nine but then bogeyed holes 13 and 14 to give back a few strokes. He had a two-shot lead heading into the final few holes, but neither Koepka nor Oosthuizen could make a final push. Mickelson finished at -6 (282), making par on the final hole after hitting a steely, clutch second shot from the rough on the left side of the fairway. The shot landed on the middle of the green, setting up an easy two-putt par and representing the last hurdle “Lefty” had to clear to bring home this historic title.

Phil Mickelson made up — in this tournament — for the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, when he merely needed to par the 72nd hole on Sunday to win, and bogey to make a Monday playoff. He doubled that hole, and has similarly lost other majors which were within his grasp. This major, won a month before turning 51, feels like the sport's way of repaying him. He got one back…

and yet it is so much more than just one major title for Phil Mickelson. This one will live forever, one of golf's most indelible and iconic moments of all time.