Mickelson Still Super in Arizona

On a day when Grant Waite of New Zealand became the 10th player to shoot a 60 and two others tied the previous Phoenix Open record with 62s, Phil Mickelson had what it took to win.

Mickelson sank a 2 1/2-foot birdie putt on the third playoff hole Saturday at Scottsdale, Ariz., beating Justin Leonard and the approach of darkness by the narrowest of margins, to win his seventh PGA tournament and second this year.

Both had finished at 15-under-par 269, Mickelson shooting a 67 and Leonard a 69.

Mickelson became the first golfer to win at Tucson, where he has won three times, and Phoenix in the same season since Johnny Miller in 1975, and the $234,000 first prize increased his 1996 earnings to $474,050 in three tournaments.

Waite had two eagles in an 11-under round, and Mark Calcavecchia and Curt Byrum shot the 62s, but they were all far back when play began.

Mickelson’s ability to sink an eight-foot putt for birdie on the first playoff hole and a 20-footer for par on the second enabled him to keep up with Leonard, who made shorter putts on each hole.

On the third playoff hole, No. 17, Leonard had a five-foot attempt for birdie slide by. Then Mickelson, seemingly immune to pressure, rolled his putt into the center of the cup.

Rookie Tom Scherrer was in contention until the 18th hole and finished alone in third at 270 after a 68.

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Ray Floyd picked up where he left off last year by winning three skins over the first three holes and pocketing $60,000 after the first round of the four-man, two-day Senior Skins game at Kawaihae, Hawaii.

But that was it for the round as Floyd, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and newcomer Jim Colbert couldn’t beat each other in the progressive tournament. That left $480,000 on the table for the final nine holes today.

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The U.S. Golf Assn. granted exemptions to former champions Nicklaus and Tom Watson to this year’s Open and elected the first female president in its 101-year history, Judy Bell, 59, a member of the USGA executive committee since 1987.

Japanese star Jumbo Ozaki was granted a special international exemption for the U.S. Open at Oakland Hills in Bloomfield, Mich.