What a difference a week makes – a bogey at the last at Colonial Country Club sent freshly minted PGA Championship winner Phil Mickelson home as the most notable casualty of the 36-hole cut at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas.
Mickelson made a special emphasis on focusing and slowing down his routine last week at the 103rd PGA and it worked wonders. He may have been running on a low battery this week after exhausting all his energies to get to the house and hold off Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen and win his sixth major title at Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course.
When Mickelson, who became the oldest man to win a major at age 50, was asked to describe his disappointing opening-round 73 on Thursday, he said, “Yeah, I didn’t play well. I shot 3-over. But I won the PGA, so…”
Laughter ensued. He didn’t go down without a fight on Friday. Despite an opening-hole bogey, Mickelson rebounded to make three birdies in a four-hole stretch beginning at No. 6 and was back to even par for the tournament after a 10-foot birdie at 15. He was a stroke within the cut line, but then he bogeyed 16. He managed a par at 17 and hit his tee shot into the fairway at 18. But his approach from 139 yards found the left green side bunker and he failed to get up and down.
“I love this tournament and I’m sad I will not be here for two more days,” Mickelson said.
Instead, he can head home and recharge the batteries and previously said he plans to spend the next two weeks prepping for the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.
Seventy-five golfers in all made the cut at 1-over 141, with Matt Kuchar and Abraham Ancer among those who straddled the right side of the cutline. Joining Mickelson on the wrong side of the line were several notables, including a bunch of European Ryder Cup stars of recent vintage and American hopefuls Patrick Reed and Scottie Scheffler.