PGA Championship
Mickelson leads Koepka by one stroke entering final round.
Keeping an eye on golf ’s second major of the year:
Phil Mickelson survived a wild ride Saturday at Kiawah Island with a 2-under 70 in the PGA Championship that left him 18 holes away from becoming golf ’s oldest champion.
The 50-year-old Mickelson walked off the 10th green with a five-shot lead and such amazing control of his game that it was shaping up to be another runaway on the Ocean Course. Far from it.
Mickelson hit one tee shot into the water and another under the tire of a cart. Brooks Koepka rattled off three birdies to tie him for the lead.
The difference was the closing hole at Kiawah, easier as the wind shifted from being in the players’ faces to coming from right-to-left off the Atlantic Ocean. Koepka, in the group ahead, went just long and took three putts for a bogey and a 70.
Mickelson went well long and played a flop shot, a risky shot to most everyone but him, and nearly jarred it. He curled in the 4-foot par putt to become the oldest player with a 54-hole lead in a major since 59-yearold Tom Watson at Turnberry in 2009. That didn’t end well for Watson, who lost that British Open in a playoff to Stewart Cink. For Mickelson, it’s an opportunity to become the oldest player to win a major. Julius Boros was 48 when he won the 1968 PGA Championship.
Mickelson was at 7-under 209. For all his success in the majors — five victories, runner-up finishes in all four of them — this is only the third time he has held the 54-hole lead. He will play in the final group with Koepka, a twosome with nine majors among them. Koepka will be going for his third Wanamaker Trophy in the last four years.
Koepka, shaking off effects from ligament surgery on his right knee that has limited him to two tournaments in three months before arriving at Kiawah, called the third round his worst performance of his career.
Louis Oostuizen knows the feeling. He started the third round tied with Mickelson and had a long three-putt bogey. The South African never caught up.