Share of Lead Is Not Old Hat

By THOMAS BONK

Aug. 18, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

DULUTH, Ga. —

Nobody ever said it would be easy for Phil Mickelson as he tries to steer his way to his first major title and along the way avoid melting at the steamy PGA Championship.

Nobody ever thought it would be difficult for Tiger Woods to make a cut.

So you have to say it is a strange and cruel sport when you have Mickelson, with Woods safely out of the way, staking a claim to the lead Friday only to see some virtually unknown Japanese golfer in a funny hat pull in front.

Mickelson turned in his second consecutive 66 and was barely inside the locker-room door by the time Shingo Katayama and his cowboy hat passed him with a 64. David Toms got in the act with a 65 to match Katayama at nine-under 131, worth a one-shot lead over Mickelson and Bob Estes after two rounds at the Atlanta Athletic Club.

Katayama and Toms, a 34-year-old from Louisiana, equaled the best 36-hole score in tournament history. That’s what it took to keep a confident Mickelson out of the lead.

“I want to continue my good play and pull away,” he said.

He isn’t the only one. There isn’t much separating anyone from the leaders, not with eight players within three shots of the leaders and British Open champion David Duval right there at six under after a 68.

But aside from Woods barely sneaking in at the cut line and aside from Duval’s chances for his second major in a row, Katayama and Mickelson were two fairly compelling stories . . . in oddball ways, of course.

Right now, you can’t describe Mickelson-Katayama as a mutual admiration society, because they know virtually nothing about each other . . . nothing, that is, except for one thing.

Mickelson on Katayama: “Funky hats.”

Katayama on Mickelson: “Left-handed.”

Katayama, 28, is well known in Japan, where he is a nine-time winner on the Japanese PGA Tour, seven of them in the last two years. His results on the PGA Tour this year are not of the same quality--three missed cuts, a tie for 40th at the Masters and a tie for 56th at the Memorial.

He’s not exactly riding a crest of valuable experience in the PGA Championship, either. Katayama missed the cut last year at Valhalla in his first PGA Championship, so the fact that he tied the tournament’s 36-hole scoring record of 131 is something of an upset.

But then Katayama is nothing if he’s not a surprise package in a cowboy hat. He warms up hitting left-handed first, not because he’s left-handed, but because he likes people to watch him. As for the hat gimmick, he changed last year to the cowboy model, drawn up on the sides, because he didn’t like the way he looked in a regular cap.

“My face was too big, so I wanted to wear a bigger hat so my face would look small and slim,” he said.

Sounds reasonable.

At the halfway point of the final major of the year, it also sounds reasonable to assume that somebody is going to have to go very low this weekend to win. Figuring out the identity of that special someone is about as simple as finding someplace cool at Atlanta Athletic Club.

The race is still wide open, so much so that even 44-year-old Mark O’Meara shot himself back into the hunt with a 63.

Said O’Meara: “I see some signs that I’m moving in the right direction.”

He has a lot of company on that road. Duval, Ernie Els, K.C. Choi, Jim Furyk and Dudley Hart are all at six-under 134. Paul Azinger’s 67 put him in the same group as O’Meara at five-under 135.

As for Woods, he made the cut at even-par 140 on the number. His 67 was just good enough and he waited long enough to get it going. His 50-footer at the 15th rolled in for a birdie and then he made a 30-footer at the 16th to make sure he’d be around for the weekend.

Woods, the two-time defending champion, hadn’t missed a cut in 73 tournaments, since the 1997 Bell Canadian Open. And he had not missed a cut in a major since the 1996 Masters.

He knows how close he came, though. He also knows why it didn’t happen.

“I made two bombs,” Woods said.

His putt at the 15th was just lucky, he said, because he hit it too hard.

“I hit a bad putt and it slams in the hole. I’m just glad it didn’t go in the water.”

Woods said he was proud that he never quit trying and hoped to hang in there with the idea that things would turn around so he could play on the weekend.

“It’s a lot harder trying to make the cut than win a tournament. I’ve been on one side more times than the other side. Hopefully, I’ll get there again.

“Low rounds can be had out there. Hopefully, I can find them tomorrow.”

Mickelson had only one bogey, when he made the turn at No. 1, his 10th hole, after driving it into the rough. But that was the extent of his misadventures, which he once again identified as the key to his success, limiting his mistakes.

His critics point out that one of Mickelson’s mistakes, if it can be called that, is not yet winning a major. Mickelson says he’s comfortable knowing that he has been close before, but also troubled by the same thing.

“Having not won one, there could be doubts that creep in and that’s something that I’m overcoming right now,” he said.

Mickelson said anybody who made the cut has a shot at winning, which obviously includes Azinger. In 1993, the title of best player never to have won a major was generally regarded as Azinger’s, but he changed that when he won the PGA at Inverness Club.

It’s Mickelson’s burden to carry now and Azinger says there’s obviously some pressure that comes along with it.

“Clearly he is the best player who has not pulled that feat off, but he will,” Azinger said. “He’s just going to have to cope with that tag and overcome it. And until you’ve pulled it off you don’t know for sure if you’ll ever be able to.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Second-Round Leaderboard

Shingo Katayama 67-64--131

David Toms 66-65--131

Phil Mickelson 66-66--132

Bob Estes 67-65--132

K.J. Choi 66-68--134

Jim Furyk 70-64--134

Dudley Hart 66-68--134

Ernie Els 67-67--134

David Duval 66-68--134

Steve Lowery 67-67--134