Phil Mickelson is standing on history’s doorstep headed into the final 18 holes of the PGA Championship.
Mickelson looked poised to run away with the third round on Saturday at the Ocean Course. He went out and played a perfect front nine with four birdies that got him to 10-under par for the championship, five clear of his biggest threat — Brooks Koepka.
He failed to birdie the gettable par five 11th but was still 10-under at that point. At 12 he lost his drive right and ended up with a poor lie in a waste-sand area. Forced to pitch out, he’d make bogey and fell back to nine-under. Disaster then struck at the par four 14th. He duck-hooked his drive, badly, never crossed land and had to re-tee. His third found the fairway, he reached the green in four, 11 feet from the hole. He missed the bogey putt and fell back to seven-under.
Up ahead, Koepka got to seven-under and tied for the lead with birdie at the par five 16th. Mickelson regained his composure and started on a par run to the clubhouse.
Louie Oosthuizen, playing with Mickelson had troubles of his own and got to seven-under but bogeys at 13 and 17 dropped him back to five under.
Koepka lost his bid to share the overnight lead when he went long with his second into 18, chose to putt from the fringe and ran his approach eight feet past the hole. He missed his par attempt and signed for a 70 and will head into the final round with a spot in the final twosome with Mickelson.
Oosthuizen finished with an even-par round of 72 and was alone in third at five-under. Kevin Streelman’s 70 left him three back of the lead at four-under and he’ll go with Oosthuizen in the next-to-last pairing on Sunday.
Koepka’s putter was off most of the day as he missed countless birdie opportunities inside 15 feet. “I struck it nicely, drove it rally well,” was how Koepka summarized his day. “Gotta go work on speed (putting). My speed was off.”
As for Mickelson, he’ll have a chance for a magical 45th victory, a sixth major (second PGA title) and in the process, he would become the oldest player in the game’s history to win a major championship.
