Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition

Mickelson, Spieth share lead at Pebble

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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — 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 from 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.

One 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 hitting 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,” Mickelson said. “I’m also lucky to get done now and get the round over with and have guys unfortunat­ely still out there playing in some tough stuff.”

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.

Three short blasts signaled the stoppage, but because it wasn’t a dangerous situation players could complete the hole. Casey was on his final hole at Monterey when he heard the horn, followed by two more.

“I went from upset to happy in an instant,” he said.

Spieth was among 44 players who have to return Saturday 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 hands 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,” Spieth said. “[I was] trying to take advantage of the front nine.”

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