Oh that Lefty.
Never any telling what Phil Mickelson’s going to do these days.
Just when a lot of folks had him heading for retirement or the Champions Tour or somewhere out to pasture, Lefty up and won three weeks ago in Mexico.
Looked like he was at it again Thursday at the Houston Golf Club.
Lefty got out two hours late, like everyone else, thanks to an overnight monsoon on Wednesday evening that dumped a couple of inches of the wet stuff at the Houston Open.
He got out in the afternoon, yeah, afternoon golf is good for the older guys and at 47, Phil is certainly one of those. He came out of the box firing on all cylinders. He birdied the first from nine feet, the third from seven feet and the fourth from five feet — three-under after four.
At the par four fifth, his approach was a tad long, leaving him 26 feet and of course, he chipped that one in. Four-under through five.
Lefty’s crowd was getting a little juiced up by then then and they saw him drain another from 13 feet at seven. At the par five eighth, he easily got up-and-down from a greenside bunker for birdie and at the turn was six-under, just shot back of early morning leaders Lucas Glover (65) and Kevin Tway (65).
Phil said he was hitting a lot of tee shots with the shape he’ll use next week at Augusta.
“There’s disaster off the tee on nearly every hole out here,” Mickelson pointed out. “And over the years, I’ve found a lot of that disaster. But I was hitting a low, running slice off the tee, a lot like I’ll use next week (at Augusta National). I was able to navigate through all the disaster and then my iron game took over.”
After the turn, it seemed at though the air brakes came on and suddenly Mickelson was stuck in neutral after four straight pars to start the inward nine.
At 14 his day’s run came to a crashing end, a dose of disaster and Lefty’s seen more than his share of it over the years.
He let his tee shot on the 216-yard par three hang to the left and it found a greenside bunker, leaving him a scary downhill shot from the sand. He tried to get too cute with it and it came rolling back at his feet, settling into one of his footprints and Lefty leaves big footprints. He was lucky to get his third out, on the fringe. From there he got up-and-down for double and what looked like what might have been a really special round, maybe 63 or 64 at worst, turned into 68, leaving him in a group of 22 players tied for 26th.
Mickelson was philosophical about it all, knowing he let a good one get away.
“I didn’t make a birdie on the back nine and that’s disappointing,” he said after his round. “But I’m playing well. I got off to a good start. My goal is not to win on Thursday. My goal is to try to get in contention for the weekend. So I didn’t hurt myself there. But I didn’t help myself as much as I could have.”
Yeah, this one got away, but you know deep down inside, when he left the course late Thursday, he was probably thinking about next week.
Makes you wonder if he’s got a 30 in his bag that he might pull out somewhere at The Masters.
How about the back nine on Sunday?
