BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- Déjà vu, Detroit?
Maybe Phil Mickelson can pull a 180-degree flip-flop on his results from last weekend's Bridgestone Invitational, when he mostly mangled the final four holes and blew a victory he seemingly had in hand.
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| Lefty: 'I'm just happy to have shot even par today.' (US Presswire) |
Mickelson missed the first three fairways Thursday in the opening round of the 90th PGA Championship before scrambling to an even-par 70, which left him two strokes off the early lead of European Tour players Robert Karlsson and
See any sameness in his last two rounds?
Sunday, Mickelson held a one-shot lead with four holes to play, but found three bunkers coming home, lost to Vijay Singh by two strokes and finished fourth, his worst result after holding at least a share of the 54-hole lead since 1993.
This time, Mickelson, who started on the 10th tee, missed his first three fairways and bogeyed the first two holes in succession. Somehow, though the course was hardly yielding birdies in bundles, he was able to fight back despite a total of four bogeys on his opening nine.
If he expressed a primary emotion afterward, it was relief. The day could have been disastrous nearly before it began.
"I'm just happy to have shot even par today," he said. "I think that after the start, bogeying the first two holes, I thought it was pretty good to hang in there, fight and make some birdies, because there were a lot of holes that were tough to get to."
It was classic Lefty being Lefty, with five birdies and an equal number of bogeys. Had he not chipped in for a par on the 13th, it would have been bogeys on three of the first four.
"You know, if you can stay within two, three shots of par, you can catch up," he said of the chip-in shot's importance at the time.
Later, he staked a perfect 4-iron on the brutish 17th, a par-3 of 238 yards, to within 20 inches for a no-brainer birdie.
"Everybody is going to make bogeys," said Mickelson, the 2005 PGA champion. "If you can just keep your round around par, you're going to be in the tournament, and so that's more the focus."
There was one dissimilar portion from his meltdown last Sunday at Firestone, and it could prove alarming. Mickelson was hitting hooks off the tee early, something he thought he'd eliminated from his swing under new coach Butch Harmon. Last Sunday at Firestone, his misses down the stretch were on intentional cut shots that strayed too far to the right, his preferred ball flight.
But at age 38, he's learned that the ebb and flow at major-championship leaderboards will gather up just about everyone at some point, so he kept his head down and minimized the damage.
"What other guys do doesn't really matter because some will go up the leaderboard and come back," he said. "You just know that par is kind of the score that is going to be pretty good."
