KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. – Jordan Spieth sounded as if he was channeling “the most interesting man in the world,” in those old Dos Equis commercials when he said, “I don’t watch golf, but I promise you I’m going to turn it on to watch him today.”
“Yeah, it’s Phil, right,” he added. “It’s theatre.”
Mickelson, dressed in all black like another ageless wonder, Gary Player, and sporting his now familiar Highway Patrolman shades, put on a world-class performance Saturday, threatening to run away with the 103rd PGA Championship before a few stumbles.
He closed with five pars to shoot 2-under 70 and take a one-stroke lead over Brooks Koepka at the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort.
After sharing the 36-hole lead, the 50-year-old Mickelson charged ahead with four birdies in his first seven holes.
In much more docile conditions at the Pete Dye layout, he looked like the golfer who has won 44 PGA Tour titles and five majors rather than the one that hasn’t lifted a trophy in more than two years or recorded a top-20 finish this year other than against the round bellies at the PGA Tour Champions Cologuard Classic.
Phil the Thrill dazzled, sending the announced attendance of 10,000 per day – the crowds are at least triple that – into a delirious frenzy. Throaty cheers of “Let’s go Phil,” filled the air making it sound if not like 1999 then at least a pre-COVID world with Mickelson dispensing thumbs up to his fans as if giving out candy on Halloween.
By the time he canned a 7-foot birdie putt at 10 to reach double-digits under par, his lead had swelled to five strokes and Phil’s faithful were ready to crown him champion.
“I felt I had a very clear picture on every shot,” Mickelson said of his torrid start.
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But if we’ve learned anything about Mickelson over the years, it is that he never makes it easy.
As Spieth pointed out, Mickelson always provides theater and his five-stroke lead faded away as Mickelson hit into a fairway bunker at 12, took his medicine and made bogey, then snap-hooked his tee shot into the drink at 13, had to re-tee and made double bogey. Meanwhile, Louis Oosthuizen made birdies at Nos. 11 and 12, and salvaged a bogey after driving into the water at 13, too. He shot 72 to trail by two and could’ve been even closer if he had made a few putts, including missing a gimme for birdie at 7 and taking three putts from 21 feet at No. 17.
“I think we all got lucky that he came backwards to the field,” Oosthuizen said of Mickelson.
The other beneficiary of Mickelson’s nervy back nine was Koepka. As Mickelson sprayed a drive right at the par-5 16th that stopped in a sandy area under a golf cart, Koepka was up ahead on the green converting his third birdie of the inward nine.
“Objects in mirror are closer than they appear,” an overserved fan said. “BK, baby!”
They were knotted at 7 under until Koepka missed a 7-foot par putt at 18.
“That was the worst putting performance I think I’ve ever had in my career,” he said. “Can’t get much worse.”
But Koepka, who could win his third PGA title on Sunday and match Mickelson with five majors at age 31 – before Mickelson had won any – played himself into the final group on Sunday, bum knee and all.
“I’m right where I want to be, and we’ll see how tomorrow goes,” Koepka said.
So is Mickelson, who is the fourth player to hold the 54-hole lead or co-lead in a major at age 50 or older since 1934, and would become the oldest player to win a men’s major championship. A sixth major would tie him with Nick Faldo and Lee Trevino.
Fellow 50-something Steve Stricker, who threatened to win the Waste Management Phoenix Open earlier this year, isn’t surprised to see Mickelson atop the leaderboard. They teamed up in a practice round earlier this week against Zach Johnson and Masters runner-up Will Zalatoris. When Mickelson and Stricker jumped to a 3-up lead after three holes, Mickelson turned to his partner and said loud enough for his opponents to hear, “You know, Strick, I thought we’d be more up at this point.”
“And we were 3-up after 3. Typical Phil,” Stricker said. “He still has a tremendous amount of desire to compete at this level, and that’s why he’s doing it and that’s why he’s playing well.”
Mickelson will need every bit of that moxie and Phil swagger and the guile and experience built up from a lifetime of competing for trophies big and small if he is to win his first major since 2013 and hoist the Wanamaker Trophy 16 years after he did so at Baltusrol. Spieth, for one, likes Mickelson’s chances, saying, “he’s got four good rounds in him at any course,” especially given the change in wind direction expected to wreak havoc on Sunday.
“I would actually point out that tomorrow’s wind direction is very suitable for a lefty on that into-the-wind nine holes when you get it in off the left with a lot of trouble on the right side, he can start it off left and hold the wind or even draw it back into those pins,” Spieth said.
And just like that, seemingly out of left field, ‘ol Lefty just may have one more major in him.
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