Phil Mickelson ‘has the bit in his teeth’ at PGA Championship

KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. – Steve Stricker had a premonition this might happen.

It was early in the week, and he and Phil Mickelson were taking on Zach Johnson and Will Zalatoris in a nine-hole match in advance of the 103rd PGA Championship at Kiawah.

“Let me just say, Phil did a lot of talking,” Stricker said. “So when Phil does a lot of talking, that means that usually he's playing well, and him and I beat up on Zach and Will a little bit.”

Mickelson is still making plenty of noise halfway through this windswept PGA, which he led after the morning wave after a second-round 69. After starting on the back nine and making the turn at even par, he heated up on his inward nine for the second straight day with a 5-under 31.

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“I think he has the bit between his teeth,” said Padraig Harrington (73, even par), who played the first 36 holes with Mickelson and Jason Day (75, 5 over). “I think he believes he can do it in these conditions, just like myself. I think myself, Phil would find it easier to compete on this style of golf course in these conditions in a major tournament all the time.

“You can be patient in these courses,” he continued, “and obviously you've got to make a few birdies, but it suits somebody who is a player, somebody who is thinking.”

Mickelson will turn 51 next month, and while he’s dropped to 115th in the world, 168th in the FedExCup, he’s shown some signs of life. He looked like the Phil of old as he shot a first-round 64 to take the lead at the Wells Fargo Championship two weeks ago. But he looked, well, just plain old after that, failing to break 75 as he spiraled down the board into 69th place.

Harrington said that he first met Mickelson at the 1991 Walker Cup at Portmarnock Golf Club. Three decades later, Mickelson has won 44 times on the PGA TOUR, including five majors, but with only two wins in the last seven years, he admits his mental game has fallen off.

“I'm working on it,” he said. “I'm just making more and more progress just by trying to elongate my focus. I might try to play 36, 45 holes in a day and try to focus on each shot so that when I go out and play 18, it doesn't feel like it's that much. I might try to elongate the time that I end up meditating, but I'm trying to use my mind like a muscle and just expand it because as I've gotten older, it's been more difficult for me to maintain a sharp focus, a good visualization and see the shot.

“Physically I feel like I'm able to perform and hit the shots that I've hit throughout my career,” he added.

Occasionally using a 2-wood that he deploys as a fairway finder, Mickelson hit 11 of 14 fairways in the second round. That’s uncannily accurate, for him, and allows him to shine with his irons, the strength of his game. He said he and his caddie/brother Tim have been spot-on with their yardages – Mickelson hit 12 greens in regulation – and was No. 1 in Strokes Gained: Tee to Green as the afternoon wave began.

He took a tidy 27 putts for the second straight day.

It was his ability to avoid the big miss, though, that stood out. Mickelson, whose best this season is a T21 at the Masters, came into this week 199th in driving accuracy. He admittedly strives to be average in that category, but there’s nothing average about him finding the short grass only 50% of the time.

“Yeah, there were no foul balls,” Day said, when asked what he saw from Mickelson the first two days. “Usually with Phil you can get some pretty wide ones, and he kept it straight out in front of him. And his iron play was pretty tight. There was a lot of quality iron shots into the greens.”

The only real danger Mickelson got into was as the group was put on the clock for slow play. After he came up just short of the green at the par-3 eighth, microphones picked him up saying he was rushing because he was afraid of getting dinged for a bad time.

Alas, he was not, and got up and down for par. After converting from 22 1/2 feet at the ninth for his final birdie of the day, and doing his media hits, he went back out to the practice putting green. He found something in his stroke at the turn, he said, which led to those five late birdies (2, 4, 5, 7, 9).

Yes, he’s logged some serious miles on TOUR. Yes, Harrington joked that his caddie, Ronan Flood, asked who Mickelson played in singles in the 1991 Ryder Cup at Kiawah. (Mickelson wasn’t on those teams yet.) But yes, Phil Mickelson has the bit in his teeth.

“He’s not here to make the cut,” Harrington said. “He’s not here to finish – even 15th would be a disappointment. You know what? Even second would be a disappointment for Phil.”

He will plot his way around a dastardly Pete Dye design. He will confront players half his age. He will take on himself in an epic battle between the Phil of old and just-plain-old Phil. Which one will win the weekend? That we’re all meditating on that is the surprise of the week.