Vaughn Taylor, ranked 447th in world, knocks off Phil Mickelson to win Pebble Beach

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – There's beating the odds, and then there's doing what Vaughn Taylor did Sunday to win the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Ranked 447th in the world, the 39-year-old Taylor bested a field that included six of the world's top nine players. He also outlasted one of the game's enduring greats, Phil Mickelson, who staged a mighty rally that fell a lipped 5-foot, 2-inch putt short of a playoff.

Just a week ago, Taylor was in Bogota, Colombia, to play in a Web.com tournament. He picked up a bug, got violently sick and had to withdraw. Taylor almost didn't come to the AT&T, where he received a break and got in as a first alternate.

Want more? Taylor nearly drowned a couple of years ago in a boating accident near his home in Augusta, Georgia ... where he has now qualified for the Masters. Talk about a twist of fate.

"It's absolutely amazing," said Taylor, nearly breaking down in tears a couple of times. "I can't believe I'm actually sitting here right now. I didn't know if it would ever happen again. I lost a lot of confidence. I lost a good bit of my game. But I just kept working, kept grinding, kept at it."

Seeing Mickelson win his fifth AT&T at Pebble Beach Golf Links at age 45 after a 2 1/2-year victory drought surely would have been something special. But Taylor's story didn't turn out to be so bad, either – he hasn't won on the PGA Tour in more than 10 years, and the one-time Ryder Cup member has spent two of the past three years whacking it around in obscurity on the Web.com. That's how far his once rising star had fallen.

"It was very, very difficult," he said. "I think it's better not to have a taste of the good life out here, but I think it helped me. I always had the desire to get back. I never thought it was over."

Indeed, on this day, everything fell together magically for Taylor, while Mickelson fairly well fell apart after taking a two-shot lead into the final round. Starting the day six shots behind the leader, Taylor closed the gap to three strokes after 10 holes, then used a four-hole birdie run on 13, 14, 15 and 16 to finish with a 7-under 65, which left him at 17-under 270 for the tournament.

From there, he just had to wait, watch and sweat out the four groups behind him. One by one, players fell by the wayside. Sweden's Freddie Jacobson. Jacobson's countryman Jonas Blixt. Japan's Hiroshi Iwata. Finally, there was just Mickelson left with a chance, and he came to the par-3 17th two shots behind. But Mickelson made a 12-foot birdie from the fringe, then hit two excellent shots on the par-5 18th to put himself just short of the green and in perfect position to get up and down for a tying birdie.

Mickelson chipped up just a tad shorter than he would have preferred, however, and his putt rimmed the ridge of the cup and spun away. Ecstasy for Taylor, agony for Phil.

"I thought it was a left-edge putt," said Mickelson, who closed with a 72. "I think I hit it left edge, and it was rolling there. It didn't quite take the break the way I had hoped. It never crossed my mind that I wouldn't make that one, and when it didn't go in, I was a bit shocked."

So was Taylor.

"I was standing by the scoring trailer and I thought he was going to make it," he said. "I was trying to mentally prepare myself to go to a playoff."

When it didn't happen, Taylor felt like he'd won the first real professional tournament of his life, even though he captured the Reno-Tahoe Open in back-to-back years in 2004 and 2005, his only PGA Tour wins.

"Reno's a great tournament, but it was always opposite of some other tournament," he said. "Events like this, AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, all the people watching on TV. It's pretty cool to win one of these."

It's especially cool when you nearly wound up at the bottom of the Savannah River less than two years ago. In August 2014, he was fishing on the river in a stiff current when a tie-up rope broke and his boat capsized. It took him nearly 10 minutes to get to shore, and he said if not for his tackle box that he used as a flotation device, he might not have survived.

"Yeah, that was a life-changing moment," he said. "The water was in the low 50s, so it was pretty cold. Luckily it was a hot summer day, but once you're in the water, in current, without a life jacket, it really changed when the water is up to your nose and you don't know what's happening. It was pretty scary. I really thought for a minute that this could be it."

Sort of like his golf career in recent years. Taylor made just $576,326 in 2015 bouncing back and forth between the PGA Tour and Web.com circuit. His best finish, ironically, was a tie for 10th at the AT&T. His victory check of $1.26 million Sunday more than doubled that, and it was by far the biggest payday of his career.

Coming in at No. 447, it's one of the kinds of unlikely victory stories that can only happen in golf.

"There's so many good players nowadays," he said. "Every one of us has a chance to win before the week starts. I'm just lucky enough to be the one this week."