Phil Mickelson is having an up-and-down day as he plods through the opening round of the Masters, battling his swing along the way. His tee shots have been wayward, forcing him to fight back and scramble along the front nine as he battles to make pars in the most difficult of ways. And for the most part, he’s done well, hovering around par for much of the front nine and making the turn at 1-over.
2012 Masters Leaderboard: Phil Mickelson Struggling, Searching For Consistency
But on the 10th, Mickelson ran into trouble. It was easy to tell things had gone all sorts of wrong when he hit his tee shot and almost immediately looked back while saying, “I’m gonna hit a provisional.” Why was he hitting a provisional? Because he had no idea where his ball went after it bounded into the trees along the left side of the fairway.
A search party was called in, and the gallery got to work.
The search-and-rescue mission turned into a search-and-recovery mission after the allotted five minutes have elapsed. As of this time, the ball has not been found.
That left Phil hitting four from the rough along the left side, and his provisional wasn’t so spectacular, either. His fourth shot went into the bunker at the back of the green, and his putt for double-bogey was just off the mark. For those scoring at home, that’s a triple-bogey that drops Mickelson back to 4-over par -- a disastrous start to his back nine.
At present, the leaders are at 3-under. Tiger Woods is in the clubhouse at even-par after finishing bogey-bogey,
You can view the live Masters leaderboard here.
For more on the 2012 Masters, check out SB Nation’s golf page and this StoryStream.
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