Taylor-Made: Former UW Golfer Outplays Mickelson, Wins Pebble Beach Pro-Am

Nick Taylor had a dream day at Pebble Beach, at an exclusive golf destination where most people are simply overjoyed to reserve a tee time months in advance and be able to pay the exorbitant greens fee.

In Taylor's case, he got to play a round with Phil Mickelson, win the Pebble Beach Pro-Am by four strokes for his second PGA Tour victory and walk away with $1.4 million in earnings.

All in all, it was a pretty good afternoon for the former University of Washington golfer from Canada.

Taylor shot rounds of 63, 66, 69 and 70 to finish at 19-under 268, four shots ahead of Kevin Steelman, five ahead of Mickelson and eight in front of Jason Day.

"You know I believed I could do it because I've done it before," Taylor said. 'But to do it in this fashion, playing with Phil, obviously gives me a lot of confidence going forward."

In his sixth year on the tour, Taylor had captured the 2014 Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Mississippi, against a less competitive field. It took him another 146 starts to claim victory No. 2, which came against the best.

"Nick played better than I did," said Mickelson, the fan favorite who was trying to win Pebble for the sixth time. "He holed a couple of great shots."

Taylor, 31, is one of three UW golfers who have won on the PGA Tour, joined by C.T. Pan, who captured the RBC Heritage last year at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, for his first and only victory, and George Bayer, a former Huskies football player who won four times on tour, the last in 1960 at the St. Petersburg Open.

A product of Abbotsford, British Columbia, Taylor finished as the 2008 NCAA Championship runner-up and the 2010 Ben Hogan Award winner as the top college player while at Washington.

The Pebble Beach victory enables Taylor to play in the Masters for the first time in April and in the PGA Championship in May. He's appeared in only two majors as a pro player so far.

The attached video features former UW golfer Mike Swingle saluting Taylor's effort. Swingle played against Mickelson in college, when the latter was at Arizona State.