Phil Mickelson British Open: Lefty Must Improve After Embarrassing Performance

Phil Mickelson was supposed to be one of the top competitors at the 2012 British Open.

The key word there is “supposed,” as Lefty obviously didn’t come through and missed the cut after two subpar rounds at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. He finished at 11-over par, one of the worst showings in the entire tournament.

Mickelson missed the cut at the Greenbrier Classic back in early July, so he made a last-second phone call to the organizers of the Scottish Open to work on his links game a week prior to the Open Championship.

He finished with a respectable 12-under par, good for T16 in the tournament and looked like he would have a solid showing this week.

That didn’t happen and Lefty was absolutely embarrassed on the course. He hadn’t missed a cut since the 2007 British Open and went into the tournament hoping to capture the first Claret Jug of his career.

On Thursday, Phil couldn’t find the fairway to save his life and spent much of Friday missing simple putts and checking out the sand on the course.

He actually had to hit a right-handed shot at one point when the ball was stuck on the face of a bunker.

That summed up how the 2012 Open Championship went for Mickelson, and he’s got a lot of time between now and the PGA Championship to fix his game.

It will be surprising to see Mickelson, a consummate winner, fail this miserably once again.

It’s not often that someone as great as him has slumps like this, but even Tiger Woods fell into a major funk for a long while and still hasn’t won an actual major since 2008.

Expect Phil Mickelson to bounce back nicely from this mishap, as he has too much pride and talent to continue failing.