Golf is stupid.

Phil Mickelson ended the 2017-18 PGA Tour season by not finishing in the top 10 in any of his final 12 events and even finished last at the 2018 Tour Championship. He had dropped in the Official World Golf Rankings, performed terribly at the 2018 Ryder Cup in Paris and didn't put in the requisite work for his first event of 2019 last week at the Desert Classic. Or so he said.

"I came in with very low expectations, I haven't had a lot of time to practice and prepare and I felt like all areas were OK, but you never really know until you get out and you play and compete," Mickelson said after Round 1.

So of course he came out and fired a flaming 60 over those 18 holes and backed that up with a pair of 66s to lead after 54 holes on Saturday evening. Lefty lost in the end because -- of all things -- his putter looked to be made of ice cubes in Round 4 on Sunday and he was clipped by a 31-year-old rookie who seemed almost predestined to win this golf tournament.

And yet it was a revival of sorts for Lefty given how many questions marks surrounded his 48-year-old game coming into the calendar year. It was also a reminder to me of two things: 1) Golf is stupid (which I already noted) and 2) Mickelson should play a lot less than he does to try and isolate more performances like this one.

I get that he didn't feel confident coming down the stretch because he didn't put in the hours that give people like Mickelson confidence, but the reality is that his swing held up. He hit 17 of 18 greens in regulation on Sunday and gained seven (!) strokes on the field over the final two days from tee to green. That's a swing that held up under pressure, despite what Lefty said.

"It's a weird game how sometimes if you haven't played for awhile it just can click and come right back," Mickelson told reporters. "But usually you need a little bit of a foundation there coming down the stretch. When you get to feel the pressure you need to have that foundation of practice and seeing the shots that you want to hit, seeing the ball go in on the greens and so forth and I didn't really have that today. I played OK today, I didn't play poorly I just really struggled on the greens."

And while he's overstating the need for a foundation, I think he's probably understating how bad he was on the greens on Sunday. Mickelson lost over three strokes to the field on Sunday with his putter and made under 50 feet of total putts over 18 holes (which is pretty difficult to do even if you're trying). That will come and go, though. What you should be excited about is the ball-striking, which at this stage in his career, was remarkably good.

With that, I'd like to make a proposal for Lefty: Play fewer events. Stay fresher as the season goes on so we see more of this ball-striking performance and less of what we saw at the Tour Championship and Ryder Cup. It's no secret that Mickelson has performed better in the first half of the season for the last few years (and especially last year), and it's also no secret that he plays a lot of events. Here are some of Lefty's numbers over the past five years (I'm looking at calendar years and not seasons).

YearEventsJanuary-May top 10sJune-December top 10s

2018

23

5

0

2017

23

2

3

2016

23

4

3

2015

19

2

1

2014

19

0

1

I'd like to see Mickelson play more like 15 events rather than his usual 20-ish because I think it would leave him with both more hunger and more physical ability to capitalize on that hunger. He sort of referenced this after the first round at the Desert Classic.

"I think that's the big key is that my excitement level of playing and competing and my fresh attitude after having a few months off allowed me to be really focused throughout the round and focus on each shot very clearly and kind of have a good picture of the shot I wanted to hit as well as where I wanted to miss it when I did miss it," Mickelson said.

Yes! More of this please. And maybe Mickelson is about to do just that. He's skipping this week's Farmers Insurance Open for the first time in nearly three decades and also not playing Riviera later on in February. This is a good thing, even though I know he wants to play a full schedule, and I hope we see more of it as the year rolls on.

At his age, Mickelson can still be tremendous, but his physical limitations will only increase as the years wear on. Amazingly he led the field last week in driving distance, and he seems to have (finally) recognized that some courses just don't fit him all that well. A wiser, more exacting Mickelson is not something anybody is used to, but it may allow him to have a great year on the PGA Tour at an age where most guys are starting to think about the senior circuit.