Phil Mickelson came tantalizingly close to golf’s magic 59 on Thursday, a near-miss at his last hole leaving him with a 60 and a four-shot lead in the USPGA Tour Phoenix Open.
Mickelson’s 25-foot birdie attempt at his final hole of the day — TPC Scottsdale’s par-four ninth — curled around the rim of the cup, but did not drop.
“You don’t have chances to shoot 59 often,” Mickelson said. “To have that putt on line — I’m kind of mortified that it didn’t go in.”
Photo: AFP
Only five golfers have carded 59s on the USPGA Tour, most recently Australian Stuart Appleby in the 2010 Greenbrier Classic.
Paul Goydos also accomplished the feat in 2010 at the John Deere Classic. Al Geiberger (1977), Chip Beck (1991) and David Duval (1999) have also posted 59s.
Japan’s Ryo Ishikawa carded the lowest round on a major professional tour with a 12-under 58 to win the 2010 Crowns on the Japan Tour.
Bo van Pelt had a 59 in the pro-am in Scottsdale on Wednesday, which does not go into the record books as an official tournament round.
Mickelson’s 11-under 60 gave him a four-stroke lead over five players when darkness halted play in the first round with 33 players still on the course. None of those who were to return to complete the round yesterday morning were threatening the lead.
Ireland’s Padraig Harrington and Americans Brandt Snedeker, Ryan Palmer, Ted Potter and Jeff Maggert were tied on 64.
South Korea’s Y. E. Yang and Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts were among nine players on six-under 65.
However, the day belonged to Mickelson, who was coming off a tie for 51st at Torrey Pines last week.
Teeing off on 10, the four-time major champion opened with four straight birdies. He strung together four more from the par-three 16th through the par-four first.
He birdied the par-five third, despite finding a fairway bunker, and moved to 10-under with a birdie at the fourth.
He managed just one more birdie, though, making a seven-footer at the par-three seventh.
Mickelson matched his best career round. He posted the same score in the second round of the Phoenix Open en route to his second title in Scottsdale.
Among those chasing him, Harrington is playing the Phoenix Open for the first time.
“It’s a nice score, obviously, seven-under par,” the three-time major champion said. “It’s a little bit behind Phil, but still a nice score in itself. I pretty much got the most out of the round for the first 15 holes, then had three chances the last three holes and didn’t hole the putts.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier