Capelle On Golf

Phil Mickelson has missed 16 greens in the first two rounds of the WGC CA and has but one bogey. That’s some high octane scrambling. On Thursday alone he chipped in three times for birdies.

This short game and short putt wizardry has earned him a two shot lead over Nick Watney at -13 going into the weekend at the Red Monster (formerly Blue). If a player’s not already deep into red numbers, he’s got no shot. Like Tiger Woods, for example. His 70 on Friday leaves him 10 back of Phil – and no less than 33 players separate the two. Apparently Tiger’s still not developed the flow that’s enabled him to dominate this event in years past.

Back to Phil. Though his putter’s been sputtering, such is not the case this week as he’s waved his wand only 42 times in two rounds, including 22 putts in Friday’s 66.

I was curious as to how Phil could miss nine greens and still shoot six under, so I took the Shot Tracker tour through his round and uncovered magic on nearly every hole.

On the par 5 first hole he hit the green in two, then three putted for a par. From then on he was red hot, consuming only 19 putts on the last 17 holes.

Phil made birdies with putts of (rounded off): 11’, 5’, 6’, 4’, and 14’. Phil also chipped in for the fourth time in two days for a birdie at the seventh and two putted for another at the par five eighth.

His par savers came on putts 4’, 3’, 9’, 5’, 1’, 4’, and 1’. In short, Mickelson was chipping it stiff and making the short putts Tiger usually does.

Now you and I know that the conventional way to shoot rounds of 65 and 66 at Doral, or any tour course, is to hit lots of greens and drain some putts. But Mickelson and his short game guru Dave Pelz must have figured that a better approach was to avoid longer putts, then make everything inside 15’. Who knows – but this is the duo that thought the best strategy was to attack super long Torrey South sans driver.

Or maybe the promotion minded Pelz convinced Mickelson that it was time to start hyping Phil’s short game book, which is due out this fall. Whatever. At least we have Phil, who won with flair at Riviera, to keep things interesting until Tiger finds his game. And when he does, maybe Phil will still have his, such as it is.