Mike Weir encouraged despite falling short in duel with Mickelson

Mike Weir was exactly where he wanted to be on the back nine on Sunday at the PGA TOUR Champions Dominion Energy Charity Classic in Richmond, Virginia.

Which is to say in contention, a familiar place for the 50-year-old Canadian, yet a place he also admittedly hadn’t been in in a while.

Weir won eight times on the PGA TOUR between 1999 and 2007, including a Masters, THE TOUR Championship and a WGC event, and posted 10 runner-up finishes. But his last win was the 2007 Fry’s Electronics Open and his last second was in 2014 at the HP Byron Nelson Championship.

Now here he was, at 50, dueling with another 50-year-old lefthander in Phil Mickelson.

“Of course I had butterflies, sure,” Weir said on Tuesday. “They were mostly flying in formation though, so that was good.”

Weir was mostly happy with his play and his management of said butterflies despite yielding a three-stroke lead to Mickelson after two rounds and ending as runner-up at the DECC, by three to “Lefty.”

“I felt good, really good, to be in that position,” Weir said. “I felt ready to do it. Just except for a bit of a cold putter, I would have had a really good chance.”

Weir noted that his three rounds at the DECC included a four-putt and three three-putts. He knows that’s not going to win very often on the Champions Tour. Make the four-putt just a three-putt and two of the three-putts two-putts, and he is in a playoff with Mickelson.

Weir is part of one of the strongest rookie classes in recent memory on PGA TOUR Champions. Eight of the 13 tournaments played in this pandemic-interrupted year to date have been won by rookies. The class includes not only Mickelson (a two-time winner) and Weir, but two-time winners Ernie Els and Jim Furyk and one-time winners Brett Quigley and Shane Bertsch.

Weir and Furyk both turned 50 on May 12, while the Champions were still on COVID-19 hiatus. In the eight events since the Tour resumed at the Ally Challenge in Michigan, Weir has posted three top-10s, including top fours in two of his past three events.

“I’m starting to make a few putts,” Weir said. “My first few events I wasn’t really great on the greens at all. I think overall my game is rounding into shape. I drove it really well this past week, hit lots of greens in regulation. Everything was kind of tidy with my game. And for 36 holes I putted really well. I was a bit surprised on Sunday that I didn’t keep that up or at least somewhat resemble what I had done on Saturday.”

Weir said the recent high finishes were due to better putting. He had trouble adjusting to the speed of the greens on Sunday, and he never could figure them out en route to a final-round 74 after a second-round 63.

Weir has played plenty in his career against Mickelson. Yes, he was lagging behind his American counterpart off the tee, but until one of those three-putts came along at No. 14, they were neck and neck.

“I’ve always had admiration for Phil and his game,” Weir said. “Just like when I was playing my best golf I had plenty of battles with Phil and Tiger. You want to bring your best and play well. There’s extra motivation, but at same time you play your game. Mine is not a power game likes his. It’s wearing out fairways and hitting good quality shots and making some putts. Which I did but just didn’t make the putts on Sunday. That was the difference.”

Weir finished the week T36 in driving accuracy, hitting 31 of 42 fairways. He was actually longer than he was straight, ranking 15th in the field in distance at 274.3 yards. He was T6 in GIR, hitting 45 of 54 (16 of 18 on Sunday) for 83.3%.

He was right about the balky putter on Sunday. His putting average soared to 1.938, a full half stroke and then some over what he’d done on Saturday when he recorded nine birdies.

Mickelson was dead last in the field in driving accuracy (40.48%) but first in distance at 299.7 yards. He ranked just T34 in GIR (39 of 54 for the week). But he was first in putting average.

Mickelson more or less “DeChambeau-ed” the Country Club of Virginia. In cool and wet conditions he still was able to carry the ball over 300 yards, which few of his competitors could do.

“You don’t want the game to be so one-dimensional,” Weir said. “At certain place so many variables brought so many different types of players into golf and that seems to be less and less now. You hate to see skill taken away.

“You watch the Champions Tour, we don’t have the power of the PGA TOUR, but the skill level is high. The quality of shaping the ball, the pitching, the bunker shots, the putting. The skill is still very strong.”

Weir never was a long hitter even in his prime. So he was undeterred by what happened against Mickelson on Sunday.

“It's great to have Phil out there and we were neck and neck right down to the end,” Weir said. “We were right there even with his power. Given certain golf courses you can compete, and some places fairways matter.”