Coveted 62 slips away on last putt
As is so often the case, Phil Mickelson was walking a golf course with a huge smile on his face.
This time, he was striding the ageless fairways of Royal Troon on a sun-splashed Thursday in the first round of the 145th British Open. As he piled up birdies, more smiles burst from his face. He was grinning mightily as he walked up to the final green, his chance at history a mere 16 feet from the hole.
Mickelson’s bid to become the first player in 437 major championships to shoot that mythical 62 lipped out, and he was left with becoming the 28th player to card a 63 and setting the course record at the Royal Troon.
Despite firing the bogeyfree, 8-under-par 63 to grab a three-shot lead, he left the 18th hole disappointed.
“This one’s going to stay with me for a while because of the historical element of the major championships,” the five-time major winner said. “There’s a lot of guys that have shot 63, but nobody has shot that 62. That would have been really something special.
“I’m just not going to have opportunities like that to do that. So to have that putt lip out, that’s going to sting for a while.”
Just as he thought in 2013 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open, where his putt for 59 lipped out and he signed for a 60, Mickelson thought his putt was good from the get-go and he was going to put his signature to a 62.
“I haven’t shot 59 in a Tour event, but I have shot 58s and 59s before at other rounds,” Mickelson said. “I’ll have opportunities under the right conditions. … But the opportunity to shoot 62 and be the first one to do it, I just don’t think that’s going to come around again, and that’s why I walk away so disappointed. ...
“There’s a curse, because that ball should have been in. If there wasn’t a curse, that ball would have been in and I would have had that 62. I felt focused. I think that would probably be a better word. I saw that ball going in, and I just had a good, clear vision of what was going to happen. What I didn’t see was what happened.”
Ernie Els couldn’t believe what he saw. He and Lee Westwood played with Mickelson. Els, a four-time major winner, was inside Mickelson after his approach but decided to let his playing partner have the stage to himself and putted first. Then he couldn’t believe the ball didn’t go in.
“It was good stuff,” Els said. “We had the weather for it, that’s for sure, but still it was one of the best rounds of links golf I’ve ever seen.
“I just feel for him. He couldn’t have hit a better putt. We were walking up the (18th) fairway, and I said, ‘ Come on, buddy, you have to make this putt for a 62. No one’s ever done it.’ Just don’t know how it didn’t go in.”
Mickelson leads Patrick Reed and Martin Kaymer by three shots and eight players by four, including Steve Stricker and defending champion Zach Johnson. With foul weather moving into this charming coastal town, Mickelson knows he has to buckle down in Friday’s second round. And forget his putt on 18.
“One of the biggest challenges is when you shoot a round like this, you start expectations running through your head and so forth, and that’s the one thing that I’ll have to try to suppress and hold off,” Mickelson said. “We’ll have three more rounds. We’ll have varying conditions tomorrow. It’s going to be very difficult. Changing conditions; we’ll have different winds.
“A good number might be over par. It just depends on how difficult it is.”