The solar was out on opening day at Augusta, and you would catch the reflection bouncing off Phil Mickelson’s large previous grin as he walked on to the primary tee from the following county. At 54, the American’s smile appears to be the one little bit of his recreation that’s nonetheless in good trim. He cuts an odd determine across the grounds today, in his aviator shades and LIV-branded equipment. Mickelson is a six-time main champion, and three-time Masters winner, and by any measure one of many best to ever do it. He should be one of the common males right here however it will probably really feel arduous to search out anybody within the clubhouse who has two form phrases about him to rub collectively.
“I don’t know what stage Phil is competing at,” mentioned Jack Nicklaus in his morning press convention. “I assume he’s nonetheless enjoying. He’s enjoying the LIV Tour, is he? I don’t know if he’s enjoying or not. I don’t know. You by no means see that any extra.” Nicklaus is 85 now, and whereas he is aware of rattling nicely which tour Mickelson is on today, he evidently doesn’t need to spend any of the time he has left watching him play on it. “You understand, Phil has been an excellent participant, there’s no query about that,” Nicklaus supplied. “He has been aggressive in an odd occasion right here and there however probably not in the previous few years.” Ouch.
He’s not fallacious, thoughts. Mickelson completed runner-up right here in 2023, when a superb final-round 65 swept him up the sphere from 10 photographs again, however since then he has missed extra cuts within the majors than he has made. His greatest end within the seven he has performed was forty third right here final yr. Much more dispiriting, he has solely simply recorded his first solo top-10 end on the LIV tour. He got here third behind Sergio García in Hong Kong final week. No matter else LIV received for the $200m-odd it’s presupposed to have paid him to hitch, it was not a championship contender.
He nonetheless makes his justifiable share of headlines, thoughts. There have been extra final week when he wrote a publish on X, swiftly deleted, during which he described Fred {Couples}, who is likely one of the hottest males within the sport, as behaving like a “low class jerk” as a result of he mentioned he was positive Brooks Koepka needed to rejoin the PGA Tour. And he’s common with the patrons, too, there’s a little bit ripple of pleasure wherever he goes out on the course, though by the point he was on the flip the cries of: “Go get ’em!” had given solution to chirrups of: “Grasp in there!” and: “Head up!” A number of the photographs he made across the greens had been met with stone chilly silence, which isn’t an excellent signal.
Mickelson scrambled across the opening 4 holes in even par however began to slide backwards when he reached the fifth, the place he needed to lay up out of the large fairway bunker. He dropped one other shot on the seventh the place, caught below the overhanging branches on the appropriate facet of the golf green, he tried an uneasy kind of draw together with his wedge and ended up again within the sand once more. It was the kind of shot he would have pulled off in his pomp. Then on the ninth he needed to play out of the pine straw, and dropped a 3rd. He picked a few strokes coming across the second 9, although, then dropped them once more as he got here down the stretch.
Mickelson had been paired with Jason Day and, in a type of little twists the match committee is so keen on, Keegan Bradley. Mickelson was, everybody reckoned, a cert to be the USA’s Ryder Cup captain at Bethpage Black later this yr. Then he joined LIV. When Tiger Woods determined he didn’t need the job, it fell out of the blue to Bradley, who was simply as shocked as everybody else that it landed in his lap. He’s solely 38 and the youngest man to get the job since Arnold Palmer in 1963. He goes by the unofficial nickname of “Cap’n”, now, “Shot, Cap’n!”, “Let’s Go, Cap’n!”
Bradley and Mickelson are previous buds and had been a superb Ryder Cup pair themselves again within the day. However Bradley has already mentioned Mickelson is unlikely to be concerned this time.
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Bradley appears the half, he’s sporting a correct Tom Selleck soup-strainer on his prime lip today, and he performs it too: he broke off from making ready for his opening shot to signal a baby’s autograph ebook and he didn’t depart a single fist hanging as he walked across the 18th. Out by the sixth inexperienced one company kind of gentleman was busy explaining that his agency had simply signed Bradley as much as a model new sponsorship deal for Ryder Cup yr. “Hell of an excellent get,” mentioned his pal. Bradley’s largest drawback proper now could also be that he’s enjoying so nicely he finally ends up qualifying for his personal staff, which might put him, and them, in a pickle.
He might want to putt a bit higher if he’s going to do it, although. He missed three from inside 10 toes on the entrance 9, and by the point he made it to 18 he was on two over par, proper alongside Mickelson, who duly scored one other bogey to finish the spherical on three over. Comparable scores, totally different fortunes.
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