Phil Mickelson has collected plenty of eye-catching trophies in his career, but none quite as bizarre as the one that once sat in his home. Long before LIV headlines and tour drama, the six-time major winner owned an art piece so unusual it still sparks disbelief. Curious? Let’s rewind.

Because hidden in that sprawling interview was a detail that eclipsed everything around it. Amid talk of criticism from Tiger Woods’ caddie and sleepless business ideas, one detail in his home stole the spotlight: A dinosaur skull. In his office.

In that Golf Digest interview, just days before his 39th birthday in 2009, the tone shifted the moment someone asked about the fossil behind him. When asked about what’s with the dinosaur head?

“That was my birthday present from Amy,” he said, almost casually, as if every golfer keeps prehistoric fossils on their bookshelf. The gift arrived the previous June. "Mongolian fossil, believed by paleontologists to be a Tarbosaurus bataar." The one Amy gave me is from Mongolia [paleontologists say it's possibly a Tarbosaurus bataar]," Mickelson told Golf Digest.

And yes, Phil even fielded a question about whether it was male or female. “Female, not that I would know by inspecting it or anything. I'm just going by what I was told.” But the fascination doesn’t stop at ownership. When asked whether he’d named the dinosaur, Mickelson divulged another intriguing detail.

More Than a Conversation Piece to Phil Mickelson and His Family

Still, he made it clear just how much the piece meant to him. He said, “It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever gotten,” he said. The skull became more than a conversation starter; it turned into a window into another world. Mickelson described how he and his kids would sit in his office, staring at the fossil and imagining life 68 million years ago.

That curiosity wasn’t random. His oldest daughter, Amanda—born the day after the 1999 U.S. Open—had long harbored dreams of becoming a paleontologist. Their shared fascination with dinosaurs and outer space made the skull feel less like an eccentric display and more like an anchor for family imagination.

What's more? The dinosaur skull was far from the only unique gift to Phil Mickelson from his wife. During the same interview, the golfer explained that Amy Mickelson gave him an equally unique gift for Christmas the previous year.

It was a meteorite. "That's from Argentina, a crash from the 1930s, I believe... It weighs about 300 pounds and is the size of a basketball," he explained. So who knows what else Phil Mickelson has in his collection? Yet, do you think anything tops a 68-million-year-old skull?

Written by

Dolly Bhamrick

Edited by

Sagnik Bagchi