A WEEK after storming past Tiger Woods, his playing partner, to win the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, Phil Mickelson fell achingly short on Sunday in his bid to become the first golfer since Woods in 2009 to win back-to-back PGA Tour events in a calendar year.
Mickelson, who began the day tied for the lead with Keegan Bradley at seven-under par, sank a 27-foot birdie on the last hole for a par 71 to force extra holes with Bill Haas, who closed with a 69. Bradley waited for the crowd’s roar for Mickelson to quiet to a murmur, then drained a 13-footer to cap his 71 and make it a three-man play-off at 277.
After five and a half hours of battling breezy conditions, Riviera Country Club’s bitty, bumpy greens and his own wildly beating heart, Haas secured the Northern Trust Open title on the second extra hole. He sank a 43-foot putt for a birdie three on the 312-yard 10th and slumped in relief when Bradley’s 14-foot birdie attempt slid past the hole.
Mickelson, who had won 21 of 30 times when he had a share of the 54-hole lead, hit his drive into the kikuyu grass in front of the green and could not get his second shot to stop. His ball rolled off the green and into a back bunker. His third shot stopped nine feet short of the pin.
In contrast to Mickelson’s Sunday waltz last week, when he closed with a 64 at Pebble Beach Golf Links, his final round here was more like a tango. All day long he took one step forward and two back. His thrilling birdie on the final hole came after he three-putted the 14th and 15th greens and missed by a inch a 21-foot birdie at the par-five 17th.
“I was very tentative on the greens today,” Mickelson said. “I wasn’t trying to be. I was trying to knock them in, but they weren’t as fast as I was perceiving them to be.”
Bradley’s round was also far from routine. He made bogeys on three of the first five holes but recovered to play the final 13 holes in two-under. “First time I’ve been on the other side of one of these play-off losses,” said Bradley, whose two victories last year, at the Byron Nelson Championship and the PGA Championship, came in sudden death. “It doesn’t feel as good.”
Sergio Garcia knows the challenge Mickelson was facing, having won in consecutive weeks on the European Tour last October with victories at the Castello and the Andalucia Masters. Garcia, a Spaniard making his PGA Tour season debut, had a blistering start. He covered the back nine in six-under 30 to bring into play the course record, 61.
At two-over going into the final round, Garcia moved to six-under with a birdie on his 12th hole. If not for two bogeys in his final six holes, he might have passed all 48 players who began the day ahead of him. He took 24 putts – 12 fewer than in his Friday round of 76 – but will surely not soon forget the two par attempts he missed from inside eight feet at numbers four and seven. “Even though they’re very nice,” Garcia said, referring to the poa annua greens, “they get bumpy, and it’s very tough to make some putts.”
Mickelson came from six shots back to win at Pebble Beach. Did Garcia believe he could win despite spotting the leaders nine shots? “Everything had to go absolutely perfect,” Garcia said. “It’s not that easy.”
The difficulty of subduing one’s nerves and Riviera’s layout was borne out in the final round, during which Mickelson, Bradley, Haas and Jonathan Byrd (73) all at one time held at least a share of the lead. Adding another degree of difficulty to Mickelson’s day was that he was trying to pull off a wire-to-wire victory. “It is a little bit more difficult leading from start to finish,” he said before the round, “because your expectations are high right from the start.”
Bradley said he knew Mickelson was going to make the putt at 18 to force the play-off. “Phil is too much of a gamer to not make that putt,” he said. Mickelson’s competitive spirit was willing, but in the end, his game came up a little short. “These last two weeks have been good,” said Mickelson, who is taking the next two weeks off from competition, if not from golf. “I’ve got some work I’ve got to do and see if I can get my game sharp.”
New York Times service
LEADING FINAL SCORES(USA unless stated, par 71): 277 – B Haas 72 68 68 69 (Haas won at second play-off hole), P Mickelson 66 70 70 71, K Bradley 71 69 66 71; 279 – D Johnson 71 70 67 71, J Lyle (Aus) 73 65 71 70, S Garcia (Spa) 69 76 70 64, J Walker 72 66 72 69; 280 – JB Holmes 67 73 70 70, B Van Pelt 74 68 68 70, J Byrd 68 70 69 73; 281 – A Baddeley (Aus) 73 69 66 73, J Furyk 72 70 69 70; 282 – P Perez 72 65 70 75, F Jacobson (Swe) 72 72 71 67, J Rose (Eng) 70 70 71 71, B Watson 70 69 72 71; 283 – B Molder 74 67 66 76, M Thompson 72 72 71 68, Z Johnson 71 69 71 72, A Scott (Aus) 73 71 69 70, M Leishman (Aus) 70 69 71 73, B Snedeker 75 70 68 70, R Moore 72 69 68 74; 284 – K Stanley 74 68 70 72, R Palmer 76 69 68 71, M Kuchar 69 69 75 71, K Chappell 73 67 73 71, H Mahan 67 75 70 72, K Stadler 71 71 72 70, KJ Choi (Kor) 69 71 74 70, J Wagner 73 71 68 72, C Tringale 70 74 69 71.
