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UPDATE: PGA Field Backs Up, Mickelson, Other Stars Back Into Weekend
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↵Will we ever see Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, the best players in the world, square off in the final pairing on Sunday of a major championship? Not this year. While Tiger teed off on Friday afternoon as the leader of the 91st PGA Championship at Hazeltine, Mickelson carded an inauspicious 74, his second straight round of that score, to finish his first two rounds four over par. With the afternoon rounds beginning, Mickelson was two strokes above the cut line, and needing more than a dozen players to fall apart for him to have any chance of making it to the weekend. UPDATE: It looks like the afternoon winds wreaked havoc on the field, and enough players did fall apart that the weekend could feature nearly 90 players. Late bogeys by a number of cut-line players have allowed for more than 20 additional players to sneak into the weekend, including the likes of Retief Goosen, Sergio Garcia and Justin Leonard.↵↵
↵↵Weekend or not, winning the PGA doesn’t look good for Lefty. And frankly, he hasn’t look very good either. Phil hasn’t seemed comfortable with the putter, missing relatively makeable putts in both the first and second rounds.↵
↵↵⇥“I haven’t putted this bad in a long time,” Mickelson told reporters. “You cannot win golf tournaments putting like that.” ↵↵And you really can’t blame him. The 2005 PGA Champion has dealt with a lot of personal, private drama this summer, much of which became very public with the announcements that both his wife and mother are struggling with breast cancer. Mickelson did play in the US Open after his wife’s announcement, but has played sparingly since, skipping the British Open while not playing competitive golf in late June and the entire month of July.↵
↵Phil came back to the Tour last week in preparation for the PGA, but finished in a tie for 58th at the Bridgestone. This week, he’ll most likely finish on Friday, missing the weekend at the PGA for the first time since 1995. Despite two early victories and two top-five finishes in major championships this season, 2009 has been a tough year for Phil – one he’d undoubtedly like to forget.↵
↵↵But that’s the problem with life. You can’t just move on to the next tournament. Mickelson certainly wanted to play well this weekend, but having missed more than a month has made it difficult for him to find his championship -- or any competitive -- rhythm. His focus, after all, has been elsewhere this summer. ↵
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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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