Birdies Deluge Torrey Pines

It was a busy Friday for the pros at the Buick Invitational, where they had one eye checking for clouds, one eye lining up birdie putts and another eye on the scoreboard.

Wait a minute, you say, that’s three eyes. Yes, but that’s how many it took to play the second round at Torrey Pines, where everyone expected the weather to turn into a broken sprinkler head, birdies littered the course and 59 players scored in the 60s.

At the halfway point, the leaders are Phil Mickelson, who this week has lost 10 pounds because of food poisoning, and Davis Love III, who put on a few pounds on the weight of expectations.

Mickelson, the defending champion, scorched the North Course with an eight-under 64 that would have seemed routine if not for the fact that he was still battling the effects of the food poisoning and felt queasy after the sixth hole.

“I was just getting around the course,” Mickelson said.

No one got around it any better, although Love probably deserves some sort of commendation for his 67, mainly because he hit only four fairways.

Apparently, they were the right four because Love remains the hottest player on the PGA Tour, thanks to his victory last week at Pebble Beach. He also retains his status as the guy to beat in the early going this year.

Meanwhile, Mickelson remains the sickest, so it’s probably fitting that they are tied at 12-under 132 heading into the weekend.

And, if the weather forecasters are right, it will be a wet weekend, with rain dominating the outlook. Love didn’t seem to care too much about the weekend weather.

“We’ll play whatever they give us,” he said.

Brent Geiberger, the first-round leader, turned in a 69 and is one shot behind the co-leaders. Next is K.J. Choi, a survivor of qualifying school, who had six birdies, an eagle and a bogey on his way to a 65 that put him two shots back at 10-under 134.

It is not a stretch to say it’s still anybody’s ballgame because the weather is a big wild card and 25 players are within five shots of the leaders.

One of those is Tiger Woods, who had a 67, but shaved only one stroke off his six-shot, first-round deficit. Woods chose not to discuss his round, heading straight for the putting green, where he spent 15 minutes before taking off.

So far, the co-leaders look solid. Love has played his last five rounds--three at Pebble and two here--in 69-69-63-65-67, 27 under par. Mickelson’s streak is shorter, but still noteworthy. He is 10 under in his last 19 holes and finished with an eagle Thursday.

Love said he struggled through a six-birdie, one-bogey round because he couldn’t hit his driver straight. As he walked off the last green, he told commentator Mike Hulbert that he hadn’t hit a fairway in four hours.

“That was an exaggeration, because it had only been like three,” Love said.

But he did stay on course when he easily could have strayed. After a three-putt bogey on his second hole, the 11th, he birdied three of the last five on his front side, then made three more birdies on the back. At No. 4, his 13th hole, Love hit a pitching wedge to 20 feet and made the putt. He hit a sand wedge from 90 yards to three feet at No. 8 and two-putted from 50 feet for birdie at No. 9, his finishing hole.

“I was kind of all over the place,” he said of his driving. “I was real patient.”

Actually, the real patient was Mickelson, who’d spent about eight hours in an emergency room Monday morning. He said he was given three liters of intravenous fluid at the hospital. He was unable to play a practice round Tuesday or in Wednesday’s pro-am.

If Love’s performance was a study in grinding, Mickelson’s was a textbook example of mind over matter.

Or, as Mickelson put it, “Beware of the ailing golfer.”

Mickelson said his energy flagged after the sixth or seventh hole, but that playing at a slow pace seemed to help. He collected his birdies in bunches, playing in the same group with Love on the North Course. He made four birdies in a six-hole span finishing his front side, then made four more in another six-hole stretch coming in.

That last four-hole barrage included a 15-footer at No. 4, his 13th hole, a chip-in birdie at No. 6, another 15-footer at No. 7 and a two-putt birdie from 40 feet on his last hole, No. 9.

Mickelson said he really wasn’t surprised that he has played well despite the lack of practice, mainly because he knows Torrey Pines so well, he could probably par it blindfolded. Besides that, he knew he was already in good form from last week at Pebble Beach.

“I was still able to have the same swing thoughts and feeling,” he said.

For what it’s worth, Mickelson’s 64 was not only the low round of the day, it was also his low round of the year. And you know what that means, of course: Beware the ailing golfer.

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BUICK INVITATIONAL

AT TORREY PINES

Davis Love III: 65-67--132

Phil Mickelson: 68-64--132

Brent Geiberger: 64-69--133

OTHERS

Jose Maria Olazabal: 68-68--136

Tom Lehman: 68-68--136

Tiger Woods: 70-67--137

Hal Sutton: 72-67--139

John Daly: 71-69--140