Billy Reed: Heads up, everyone; golf is trying to give us a feel-good story. Can Phil Mickelson pull it off??

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the game of golf is trying to give us a feel-good story just when we need one most.

After three rounds of the PGA Championship, one of the sport’s four major events, the leader is Phil Mickelson. He is 50 years old, only a month or so from turning 51.

For most Americans, that’s a fine age, teetering on the fine line between youth and senior status. But for professional golfers, it’s ancient.

Today’s game is owned by the youngsters who can drive the ball a zillion yards. There’s a bunch of them out there, many who weren’t born when Mickelson joined the PGA Tour in 1992.

Billy Reed is a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, the Kentucky Athletic Hall of Fame and the Transylvania University Hall of Fame. He has been named Kentucky Sports Writer of the Year eight times and has won the Eclipse Award three times. Reed has written about a multitude of sports events for over four decades and is perhaps one of the most knowledgeable writers on the Kentucky Derby. His book “Last of a BReed” is available on Amazon.

Yet here was Mickelson yesterday, dressed in black like some kind of Darth Vader, hitting his own monster drives and knocking difficult approach shots onto the greens, and putting with the coolness of a guy who has five major titles to his credit.

So instead of folding, as old guys are supposed to do when they hit the third round of a major, Mickelson, known around the golf world as “Lefty,” has a one-shot lead over Brooks Koepka, who is 20 years his junior.

(By the way, Koepka has a great-uncle, Dick Groat, who was an All-American at Duke in both basketball and baseball in the early 1950s. He picked baseball and was shortstop on the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 1960 World Series champion.)

Today a lot of golf fans, and even some who are not, will be watching CBS to see if Mickelson can hold his own one more time against the ultra-difficult Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, SC.

Besides a little slice of immortality, Mickelson will be out to win the winner’s share of the $12 million purse. But the money is truly secondary to Phil’s legacy, and isn’t that refreshing?

Mickelson lumbers instead of walks and his shy, humble, aw-shucks demeanor have made him a favorite with golf fans everywhere. He’s a plodder more than a personality.

But at Kiawah this week, he’s also showing the steely side of his personality. So far he has been able to turn back every challenge. His younger pursuers know he may lose, but he won’t choke.

So how big a deal will it be if he wins?

Well, the oldest golfer to win a major is Jack Nicklaus, who was 46 when he won the 1986 Masters. He would join the club that includes names like jockey Bill Shoemaker, who won the 1986 Kentucky Derby at 54, and George Blanda, who was still kicking field goals in the NFL in his late 40s.

When Mickelson was born in 1970, coach John Wooden still was winning NCAA basketball titles at UCLA; Brooks Robinson of the Baltimore Orioles was playing third base like it had never been played; and Margaret Court won the Grand Slam in women’s tennis.

Today Mickelson will have his own personal rendezvous with history.

I will not be disappointed if he loses, but I’ll be ecstatic if he wins. Every now and then, senior citizens deserve to have their day. I just hope Phil doesn’t hurt his back trying to carry us all.