The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mickelson, Spieth, 3 others share lead at Pebble Beach
Phil Mickelson survived a wild finish without having to deal with the rain. Jordan Spieth endured a wet finish to his day with three tough pars, followed by some unwitting help by a spooked fan.
Both were atop the leaderboard Friday in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, joined by Lucas Glover, Paul Casey and Scott Langley, when the second round was suspended because the rain had formed large puddles on the greens.
They played more golf than expected by moving up the start by an hour, and it was entertaining as ever.
A day after Mickelson didn’t miss a single fairway for the first time in 1,664 rounds on the PGA Tour, he couldn’t seem to find one at Spyglass Hill. He still managed to surge into the lead, including one 3-wood from 256 yards out of the trees on the par-5 14th to 6 feet. It caught up with him at the end. After banging in a birdie on the par-3 fifth, Mickelson missed three straight fairways that led to three straight bogeys until he closed with a 4-iron to 18 feet for birdie and a 4-under 68.
“I hate not finishing the round off, making three bogeys after having a pretty good round going in,” he said.
Mickelson was the first to finish at 10-under 133. Glover started strong in tame weather at Pebble Beach and shot a 6-under 66 to get to 10-under 134, while Langley (69 at Spyglass Hill) and Casey (7-under 64 at Monterey Peninsula) narrowly finished at 10-under 133 ahead of the horn that ultimately stopped play for the rest of the day.
Spieth was among 44 players who have to return this morning — weather permitting — to finish the last two holes of his round. Part of him was happy to be off the course considering the fight he had on his hand in cold, raw rain with increasing wind.
Spieth shot 31 on the back nine at Spyglass Hill to get in the mix, and missed two good birdie chances to start the front nine.
“I got off to a really nice start, which helped, knowing that the conditions were blowing in, trying to take advantage of the front nine,” he said. “And then once they started to come in, it was just try and hold on for dear life.”
On the par-5 seventh, Spieth hit out from under a tree, over another one and through the fairway. His third shot was just right of the green, and Spieth immediately called for a ruling when he saw a fan’s hand swat the ball onto the green.
The rules official talked to the fan, who said he threw his hands up when the ball landed in front of him, and he did not intentionally hit the ball. That meant Spieth played it from the green, instead of chipping from that spot.