Mickelson: Goodbye Columbus, hello Torrey
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Phil Mickelson came to this Memorial Tournament in his usual high spirits -- course is great, health good, game good, excited. All in all, a kid heading for scout camp is on a downer by comparison.“Excited about how I'm starting to play, and I want to continue that momentum,” Mickelson was saying. That was the carryover from taking his second win of the season just the week before, in the Crowne Plaza Invitational at the Colonial.
“This will be the last tournament I play before the U.S. Open,” Mickelson announced. He was getting serious. The Open would be in two weeks at Torrey Pines, pretty much his home course, at San Diego, his hometown. Talk about not having any excuses.
But nothing he's done in three rounds of the Memorial speaks of momentum or of any other quantifiable pre-Open quality or heat. Nor, for that matter, of any lack of same. It's been something of a stroll in Jack Nicklaus' beautiful park, Muirfield Village, though in truth, that's hardly what Mickelson had in mind coming here. And if this is not good news for the world's best left-hander, well, it was hardly bad news, even with the U.S. Open rearing its ugly head in two weeks. What you had here was one glass half full, the other half empty, and take your pick. And this while people named Justin Rose, Jerry Kelly and Matt Kuchar went galloping past.
But things were looking up a bit Saturday. After opening 72-75 (the latter score in some pretty hefty winds) Mickelson put up a 2-under 70. But even that was badly scarred. In fact, it was three ragged shots higher than it should have been, in the kind of play that doesn't bode well for designs on the U.S. Open.
At the par-4 17th, he went from rough to rough, then hit a short, high lob into a bunker and two-putted for a double bogey. And at the 18th, he went from fairway bunker to greenside bunker and two-putted for a bogey and a 37. The good news was, this was his first nine, and that he shook this stuff off to come home in a flawless three-birdie 33. So Mickelson-readers will have to conclude that the guy is a fighter and is certainly not mailing in the rest of a tournament he has no chance to win.
“Gosh,” Mickelson said (he says “gosh” a lot), “I don't know what the difference was between yesterday's and today's round [75-70]. It was windy and challenging, but for the most part I hit a lot of good shots and just kind of kept it around par, and then birdied a couple coming in.”
That will do it for analysis.
The spirit was still willing, and as far as Mickelson was concerned, so was the flesh. He was still as bubbly as when he arrived, looking forward to the U.S. Open. No echoes from the debacle at Winged Foot ('06), when he blew it with a weird tee shot into a commercial tent at the final hole. No echoes from Oakmont, when he hurt his wrist in early practice, trying to hit out of devilish rough.
“I feel better than I've ever felt,” Mickelson said. “I've got no more issues with my hands or anything. I feel great. I've had a year now to work on the swing changes with Butch [Harmon, coach]. I expect a lot out of this summer. I think it could be a very good one.”
He could have mentioned his sense of humor, as well.
Mickelson hit a kid at the green at the par-5 No. 5, when he thought his approach was so dead-on that he didn't even yell “Fore!”
“It was going to be in the back part of the green, and it flew right into the poor kid's knee,” he said.
Someone noted a current commercial, where he's in a motel conference room, sitting around a table with people he's hit. He can just see the next commercial coming.
“We're having to get a banquet room, I guess,” Mickelson said.
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