Beaver Cleaver knows why GQ hates Phil Mickelson

Congratulations to Phil Mickelson for making GQ’s list of the “10 Most Hated Athletes” in the February issue, now on the newsstands. Way to go, we’re proud of you, Lefty! After years of trying, you finally won a major tournament. And now you’ve been exposed as a phony in a major magazine.

Phil was named the eighth biggest jerk in sports, and what makes the accomplishment really noteworthy is the select group of certified schmucks he joins, among them: 1) Terrell Owens, 2) Barry Bonds, 5) Kobe Bryant, 7) Bonzi Wells, and 10) Lleyton Hewitt.

The article says Phil doesn’t have a single friend among the players on the PGA Tour, and yet he’s one of the most popular players with the fans. How can we explain the contradiction?

To understand in the most efficient way, I went back to Jennifer Mario’s column on author John Feinstein. The author of “A Good Walk Spoiled” nails Phil’s personality with two words: Eddie Haskell.

Readers of a certain age will recall that in the late 1950s and early 60s, Eddie was a supporting character in the popular TV series “Leave it to Beaver.” Eddie was the funniest character on the show, probably because he was an archetype that everyone in the television audience instantly recognized from their own lives. He was that snooty little brat we all loved to hate. An unctuous brown-noser when the parents were around, he showed his true self – sarcastic, mean, conniving and self-congratulatory – when only kids were present.

Eddie was so vivid in his phoniness that Ken Osmond, the actor who played Eddie, never had much of a career after the series was canceled and ended up working as a cop. Nobody could look at the guy without thinking of Eddie Haskell. By the time he’d reached middle age Osmond was consigned to autograph shows and B-movies like “Dead Women in Lingerie” (1991). Hope nothing like that happens to Phil.