BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. – His wizardry with wedges seemed to give Phil Mickelson a considerable edge going into a PGA Championship that promised to be won around the crazy greens of Oakland Hills Country Club.
Right now, the San Diegan is playing as if a witch has turned his fingers to stone.
Mickelson struggled in nearly every facet of his game yesterday in shooting 3-over 73 in the second round. He missed half the fairways and eight of the greens. He couldn't convert on four birdie putts of 12 feet and closer. But it was his wedge-game struggles that were shocking.
When Mickelson birdied the par-3 13th, he was even for the tournament and only one shot off the lead of J.B. Holmes. But on three of the next four holes – at 14, 15 and 17 – he turned what appeared to be reasonable chances for saves around the green into bladed shots that squirted well past the pin and turned into bogeys.
Mickelson lamented some of his wedge play after a first-round 70, but this should have been far more disconcerting, considering it put the world's No. 2 player four back of Holmes at 3-over.
“It's hard to say if my technique or feel is bad, or it's just the shot is tough,” Mickelson said.
Mickelson admitted that on his greenside wedge shots at 14 and 17, both from the low first cut of rough, he should have left himself no more than 5 feet. He went 12 feet past at 14 and 30 feet past on 17.
After the shot at 17, XM Radio on-course commentator Mark Carnavale told his audience, “I've seen some short-game shots from Phil that are blowing my mind. That shot was an easy shot.”
Woody's pain
Woody Austin,
pushing hard to make the U.S. Ryder Cup team through automatic qualifying, was his typical, brutally honest self after he stumbled to his second straight 79. He missed the cut after finishing runner-up to
Tiger Woods in last year's PGA.
“The Ryder Cup is over for me. That's how I look at it,” Austin said. “My whole intent this year was to make the team. I didn't make the team. So I'm very embarrassed and disappointed in myself right now. The golf course didn't do anything to me. I'm the one who played like an idiot, who played like a 20-handicap.”
Going into the PGA, Austin was ninth on the U.S. Ryder Cup points list, with the top eight getting an automatic berth. Austin now will have to hope to be one of captain Paul Azinger's four wild-card picks. He had been considered among the favorites to get a nod, and it didn't seem as if Azinger was too concerned, even after hearing Austin's rant.
“He was just being Woody,” Azinger said. “Do I need to call (his wife) Shannon and tell her to remove all the sharp objects for a day or two, let him know he's got three tournaments to go?”
Azinger will make the announcement of his captain's picks on Sept. 2.
Locals watch
Pat Perez (Torrey Pines High) made four consecutive bogeys on his front nine en route to 40, but he shot 33 coming in to shoot his second 73 and make the cut at 6-over.
Despite hitting just 11 of 28 fairways in the first two rounds, Escondido native John Mallinger made the cut by one shot, at 7-over, after shooting 75 in the second round. Mallinger bogeyed 15 and 16 and double-bogeyed 17.
Chip-ins
The 17th and 18th holes are brutal. They yielded a combined three birdies in the second round. There were 17 double bogeys or worse at 18, and at 17, contender
Sergio Garcia four-putted from 60 feet and
Geoff Ogilvy three-putted from 4 feet.
Colin Montgomerie's 14-over 84 was his highest round-to-par in 201 rounds played in majors . . . Vijay Singh, last week's Bridgestone winner, shot two 76s and missed the cut. Singh butchered his final hole, the par-3 ninth, when he hit the green, putted off, used a wedge to get back on and needed three more putts.
Tod Leonard: (619) 293-1858; tod.leonard@uniontrib.com
