Phil Mickelson: Recap and Analysis of Lefty's Performance at the PGA Thus Far

On a day that started with dead-calm air, golfers in the morning wave posted scores in the 60s, but Phil Mickelson, with an afternoon tee time, started poorly, hitting a driver into the crowd left of the first fairway.  It was an omen of things to come.

Michelson hit a lot of things, but almost never fairways or greens. He visited rough, sand, slopes and generally had every lie but upside down. From where he played, it was a miracle that he finished at +1 instead of +45.  A normal person would have posted 173, not 73. 

He hit such bad shots that even some of his normally spectacular wedges were poor, but overall, his short game skill saved him time and time again. He fought. Battled. Clawed. He never gave up. What’s more, his putting truly held the round together, something that could not be said about Mickelson in recent months. 

The wind wasn’t even a factor until the end. During the front nine, there was a light breeze. But by the time Mickelson’s group reached the 10th hole, it was 8 MPH. By the time he got to the finishing holes, it was up to 18 MPH according to the PGA.com live, on-course announcers who had an anemometer.  

Mickelson hit only two out of seven fairways on the front nine when the wind was still calm. For the round, he hit eight out of 14 fairways and had eight of 14 greens in regulation. He had numerous one-putts just to save pars, and they were not short putts.

He started the day hitting a tee shot into the crowd in the left rough, and with his third shot on that same hole, he flubbed a chip which rolled back to his feet. He was in the weeds twice at the seventh, and the big question there is: Did he damage his wrist hitting out of the schmutz on his second shot? He smacked the grassy stuff hard, and the ball rolled out a few yards and curved back into the same waste area a few yards closer to the hole, so he had to hit a similar shot again, but with less grass. 

He was infrequently brilliant, for example, hitting his tee shot at the eighth to about a foot.

When Mickelson finished the front nine, Ernie Johnson of TNT, quipped, “His scorecard looks a like a geometry test. Lots of circles and squares.”  

At about that time, a gator was eating a snake. One of the PGA.com announcers said, “Normally you’d grab a shovel. I never thought of grabbing an alligator.”

At the 10th, Mickelson finally hit a fairway, but he pushed the next shot into the waste area left of the green. He asked for relief from a semi-plugged lie there, but the official did not allow it. Through the green, which is how they are playing this week, means you hit it where you find it, and in sand, you don’t get relief when it’s plugged.

On the 11th, Mickelson went from waste area to waste area. He found the only sandy areas in the middle of the fairway on the 12th and 13th. He missed the green on the 14th, the hardest hole of the day, and had to chip blind up to the putting surface which is a bit like trying to hit to the top of a giant gumdrop. Bogey there. 

Mickelson clawed his way in, missing the fairways at the 15th and 16th and hitting over the green onto a difficult down slope of rough at the 17th. Finally at the 18th he hit a fairway, but how he missed the green from there is a mystery. Maybe he just was not used to the short grass. A bad chip and a spectacular par putt from 18' followed. It was an exhausting round just to watch, never mind play.

If anybody had just been watching where he hit it and not what he scored, they would not believe it was a 73.  

For Mickelson to make the cut, he will have to find the fairway somehow, and then find the greens, even if he has to use hybrids or 5-irons or a putter from the tee to do it. To continue to play from the spots he found in the first round would just be ridiculously hard. 

Brandel Chamblee, analyst on The Golf Channel and former PGA Tour player, said Mickelson’s swing speed has slowed down, and he speculated that is the issue. Others suggested his weight loss is throwing the timing of his swing askew. It may be that he’s just a fraction off somehow, the same way that Tiger Woods is sometimes a fraction off one week and then in the victory circle the next.    

In Mickelson’s favor is that he will have the early tee time on Friday. Stronger winds are predicted for the afternoon, but so far the weatherman has not been spot on. If it is a typical coastal day, the wind will pick up as the heat rises from the land mass and draws the air in from the ocean. According to the local radar, rain is on the way this evening which will give the morning wave of players soft greens and soft fairways.

If Mickelson can find any semblance of his typical game, he still has a chance to win the tournament, but he cannot continue to put himself through the torture he endured today and expect to win. On the positive side, he's always said he wanted to play like Seve Ballesteros, and today, he did.