Mickelson gets last laugh with his third Masters
AUGUSTA, Ga. – Phillymick is one grand fisherman. He knows how to play the gallery. Set that hook and just drag them along. Jiggle the line and get a little giggle. Hey, give the guy a rubber nose and baggy pants and let him go play Saturday Night Live. If golf shots were one-liners, here’s a breakup:
In the process of winning his third Masters green jacket Sunday, he’d just birdied Augusta National’s nasty little 12th, the one that killed him last year, and he’d taken a one-shot lead over South Korea’s K.J. Choi, and went up by two on his playing partner, Lee Westwood. And then he went to the tee of the par-5 13th and pulled out his driver. Better he should have pulled a rusty knife.
Anyone holding the lead and coming to that classic, sweeping dogleg left, with the stream in front of the green, and who can hit it a mile, knows the driver at this hole is something like suicide. At most, you hit the 3-wood. Big distance is a bad thing. Phil Mickelson did not come to the 13th as a stranger. He was playing in his 18th Masters, and he’d won two. Even so, he pulled his driver.
The danger here, for a guy who can rip it – and Phillymick can – is that the ball will keep on rolling straight ahead while the fairway goes curving off to the left, like a DUI running off the road, and end up in the trees. Which is what happened. He ended up in the pine needles with a number of trees in and around his way, leaving him little room to proceed.
Previously, what may have been his career shot was that drive into the exhibition tent when he blew the 2006 U.S. Open.
This time, he was 207 yards from the 13th green, having to hit off pine needles, over a stream and to a green whose treachery has brought tears to the eyes of many.
And he hit his 6-iron and stuck it 3 feet from the hole.
Cue the laugh machine.
That could qualify as a career shot. But nothing kills a career shot like missing a 3-footer for eagle and a virtual lock. Which, of course, he did. Readjusting his rubber nose, he made the birdie.
“I was going to have to go through that gap if I laid up or went for the green,” Mickelson said, explaining why he picked his 6-iron instead of laying up. He didn’t mention the stream in front of the green, which for some would dictate a layup.
Bone MacKay, his caddie, surely tried to convince him to do something sensible.
“Bones didn’t try to talk me out of it,” Mickelson said. “We were in between 6 or 5 [irons], because sometimes out of the pine needles, the ball will come out a little slow. I just felt like it was clean enough that it was going to come out fine, and I wanted to hit something hard, so I hit 6.”
After all, there was nothing at stake except his third Masters, his first win of the year, his career 38th, and the spirits of his cancer-stricken wife Amy, who had ventured from home and was waiting for him at the 18th green.
Well, maybe it was Phillymick’s time after all, but it sure didn’t seem so early on. At the par-5 No. 2, he came out of a bunker nicely and had about 6 feet for a birdie, and just after he tapped the ball, a little pine thingy came floating down out of the trees and fell right smack in front of his rolling ball. The gods couldn’t have time that gag any better. His ball hit the thing and went scooting off to the left.
He did a lot of other hero-type stuff, like chopping out from the trees at the 10th and ending up, oh, 100-plus feet from the hole. If ever he was going to make a bogey, this was it. But he chipped stiff and got his par, and he never did make a bogey in this five-birdie 67.
And then what a finish. Fresh from the birdie at the 15th, that gave him a three-shot lead that was hardly fool-proof, he went right at the pin at the par-3 16th, which has killed many a hopeful. He got away with a par.
And what a finish. Lee Westwood birdied the 17th, closing to within two. At the dangerous 18th, Mickelson decided he’d had quite enough of pine needles and sand for one day, and so he avoided both by using his 3-wood off the tee. Then he hit a wonderful 7-iron to 10 feet. And there before Amy and the kids, to say nothing of a huge gallery and worldwide TV audience, he made the birdie, got his 16-under 272, a three stroke win, and his third Masters. To say nothing of huge hugs from Amy and the kids.
Phillymick had had the last laugh.
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