Phil Mickelson could win the next five major championships and chances are that at a news conference before No. 6, there would be at least one question about the 2006 U.S. Open.
Standing on the 72nd hole with a one-shot lead at Winged Foot Golf Club, one par away from winning a third consecutive major, Mickelson hit his tee shot off a merchandise tent, then hit a tree while trying to make a heroic recovery on his second shot. He eventually suffered a double bogey, losing the title to Australian Geoff Ogilvy by a stroke.
But, in the category of “making lemonade out of lemons,” Dave Pelz, one of the left-hander’s coaches, looks at the disastrous finish and sees nothing but sunshine and lollipops.
“I think that was maybe the best short-game performance I’ve ever seen,” Pelz said of Mickelson’s weeklong play. “Winged Foot was the exact course where, if you were analyzing Phil Mickelson’s game over the last 10 or 12 years, it would be where you’d say that he could not contend on.
“The fairways are narrow, the rough was horrendous and the greens were incredibly difficult, but he almost won there. Perhaps he should have won there, and he did it without hitting the ball well (off the tee).”
While Mickelson was third in putting average for the week, he hit the fairways just 43 percent of the time, 51st among the 63 players who made the cut. In the final round, he found the short grass just twice in 14 tries.
That’s one reason why Pelz said the question of whether Mickelson should have hit driver or 4-wood off the tee Sunday on No. 18 was moot. There would have been trouble either way.
“We’ve talked a lot about the last four holes, not just the last one,” Pelz said. “He could not hit it into the fairway. He just drove it straight into the rough on Nos. 16 and 17 and he got to 18 and didn’t know what to do, so he tried to hit a cut shot onto the fairway and overcut it. Then, he tried to hit a recovery shot like the one he had at 17, which he’d done beautifully, and hit it right into the tree.
“It was two really bad swings at a really bad time to do it.”
Adding insult to injury was what awaited Mickelson after his third shot found a greenside bunker. As had been the case at Augusta National before he won his first major at the 2004 Masters, Mickelson and Pelz had spent numerous 12-hour days getting comfortable around the greens at Winged Foot. Even so, the two weren’t prepared for what came next.
“He hit the balls on 16 and 18 into the sand,” Pelz said. “It’s his responsibility, but we had been there for seven rounds and I’d never seen a ball plug in the sand, and on both he had plugged lies which were impossible to get anywhere near the hole.
“He never should have been there in the first place, but once he’s there, he’s usually pretty good at getting out, but that lie on 18 was impossible. And you have to understand, when you make bad swings and you get bad breaks at the same time, there’s no way to win.”
