Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, Phil Mickelson: Maybe Next Week
By Ryan Andrade
Jason Day, Rickie Fowler & Phil Mickelson – all of them? Golf can be cruel.
Coming into the week, all eyes were on Jason Day. It was his turn to respond to the early victories from Jordan Spieth and Rickie Fowler. He was the defending champion at this event, however he had to deal with the flu.
It came as a surprise when Day decided to skip the Wednesday Pro-Am because of the flu. It left us unsure of his exact status for his Thursday morning tee time. He was able to give it a go, but his health clearly was affecting his game.
Day was only able to manage an even-par 72 at the much easier North Course at Torrey Pines on Thursday. That put quite a bit more pressure on the world’s number 2 golfer to go to the 600 yard longer South Course, to try to put up a score to get back into the tournament. Perhaps he tried too hard. He shot a 2-over-par 74 to miss the cut.
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It’s hard to be too critical of Jason Day. The man was clearly under the weather, but I’m sure Day isn’t making excuses for himself. He was just plain wild off the tee, as he managed to hit only 36% of the fairways. Unlike some other stops on the PGA Tour, Torrey Pines has quite thick and sticky rough. Having to hit your approach shots out of that stuff as often as Day did, is not the way you want to come into these firm Poa Annua greens.
Fellow “Big 4” member Rickie Fowler also struggled at Torrey Pines. Fowler is less than a week removed from besting a stout field in Abu Dhabi. It’s possible he returned to tournament play a week too early. Having to travel across the pond and stick the peg in the ground on Thursday is always a challenge. I didn’t even mention the Monday charity event Rickie hosted to go along with all the required media responsibilities being a top player in the world requires.
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Fowler seemed to be just a little bit off in all aspects of his game. Usual for a golfer who played the prior week, he struggled with his short game at Torrey Pines. When you’re getting the ball up and down less than half of the time, that is usually going to put you in danger of missing the cut. It’s no secret that pitching out of the rough at Torrey Pines is much more difficult than what Fowler had to deal with in Abu Dhabi. Kikuyugrass can make even the best look foolish in a hurry.
Fowler isn’t going to be taking it easy next week, as he is set to tee it up in Phoenix at the Waste Management Open. While it’s always disappointing to miss the cut, it does give him two extra days to rest.
Then there was one other guy we were supposed to talk about. I can’t seem to find him anywhere. Oh wait! Is that…..Phil? In a parking lot?
I guess I really shouldn’t be too surprised. I mean over the years we have seen Phil play from just about everywhere you can think of. So a parking lot is fairly mild.
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Overall, it was a tough week for Phil Mickelson. Many people had pretty high expectations for Lefty after his impressive T-3 performance at the CareerBuilder Challenge. He was also coming into a course where he has won three times before, so he was a trendy pick to to collect his first PGA Tour win since the 2013 Open Championship.
Plain and simple, Mickelson did not hit enough greens to really be competitive. He only hit the putting surface 55% of the time. Like I spoke to before with Fowler, Torrey Pines is not the course where you are going to have easy up and in’s. Even for a player with a short game as great and imaginative as Phil’s, he only was able to successfully scramble 50% of the time.
Inexplicably, Mickelson shot 7 shots higher at the much easier North Course on Friday. He was in a great spot after his 69 on the South Course Thursday, but wasted the opportunity he had to go low to really be up there with the leaders. Instead his sloppy 76 ended his week early.
Like Rickie Fowler, Phil will be in Phoenix next week. Hopefully he can delete this one bad round from his memory bank and feed off his CareerBuilder and first round here at Torrey Pines.
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