Nothing Goes Right for Lefty

All Phil Mickelson needs to win his first major championship is to shoot a couple of 64s and get an extra-large bucket of help from the rest of the field and the erratic Scottish weather.

Mickelson, who has spent more than a year refining his game to fit the links courses where the British Open is staged, double-bogeyed Muirfield’s first hole Friday, stumbled to a six-over-par 76 and barely made the cut at 144.

Mickelson is eight shots behind the five leaders, trails 67 players and doesn’t feel particularly comfortable swinging the club, all of which means the Claret Jug is just one more Grand Slam trophy that probably won’t be sitting on his mantel this summer.

“It’s disappointing, but it’s only two rounds,” he said, sounding an optimistic tone. “I’m not out of it.”

He knows he’ll need almost divine assistance.

“I need to make a big charge, hope I have perfect weather in the morning and the wind picks up in the afternoon,” he said.

Mickelson hit his first drive in the rough, tried to hit a seven-iron out of the knee-high, thick grass and barely moved the ball. He appeared to injure his left arm, but then hit a wedge out to the fairway.

“I got a stinger up my arm,” he said. “Not just then, but every time I hit it out of the rough.”

He couldn’t put himself into birdie position for most of the rest of the round.

“I never felt like I was hitting it poorly, but I never got to the point where I could just stand up and rip it,” he said.

Mickelson has eight top-10 finishes in majors since the start of the 1999 season and had hoped this tournament would be his breakthrough.

Radio commentators here on the BBC broadcast of the tournament referred to Mickelson as the Colin Montgomerie of America. On Friday, with Montgomerie shooting a seven-under 64 in his chase for his first major championship, Mickelson can only wish.

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Muirfield club members announced that Montgomerie’s 64 was a course record, even though Isao Aoki shot a 63 in the 1980 Open here.

The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers determined that because the fourth and 13th holes were lengthened for this championship, Montgomerie’s score would be considered the new standard on the revised layout.

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The course played differently Friday than it did Thursday, with the wind changing direction. How big a difference?

“Instead of hitting a three-iron and seven-iron,” Montgomerie said of the first hole, “it was a three-wood and a three-iron.”

And that’s the difference on two days without substantial wind.

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After shooting a disappointing 72 in the opening round, Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland knew he needed some help getting the ball in the hole.

“I walked onto the putting green at 10 past 6 and walked off at 10 past 9 and was on the putting green at 6 o’clock this morning for another hour and a half,” Clarke said. Teacher Peter Cowen worked with him as Clarke hit putts one-handed with each hand.

“He missed dinner as well,” Clarke said of Cowen.

Clarke shot a four-under 67 Friday and is at three-under 139.

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Some of the interesting pairings in today’s third round: Greg Norman and David Duval; Justin Rose and Justin Leonard; Tiger Woods and Scotland roommate Mark O’Meara, Nick Price and Montgomerie; and the final pairing, at 3:30 p.m. (7:30 a.m. Pacific time), Shigeki Maruyama and Ernie Els.

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The last eight winners of the British Open were first-time winners of the event, dating to Norman’s win at Sandwich in 1993.

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Another reminder why you can’t believe anything you read in the British tabloids, this headline from the Sun: “Rose will win it, says Tiger.”

Actually he didn’t. What Woods did say about Rose was that he had the talent to win the British Open someday.

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Think there isn’t anything new to say about Woods? ESPN.com is running an on-line poll to choose a favorite Tiger, other than Woods. The list includes Tony the Tiger, Dave “Tiger” Williams, Tiger Lilly from “Peter Pan,” Tiger, the dog from “Brady Bunch,” Exxon’s Tiger, Siegfried and Roy’s white tigers and Al Kaline.

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The Open Championship is expected to bring in as much as $52.5 million to the local economy, according to a travel estimate, but the Royal and Ancient has set a higher figure of more than double that. In a normal year, one without an Open staged in Scotland, golf adds an estimated $155 million to the local economy.

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The weather forecasters, who accurately predicated rain Friday, are going out on a limb and saying that it will also rain today, but with a chance of clearing later in the day.

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He played an eight-hole stretch in five under on his way to a 69, but Andrew Coltart played in the second group of the day and his 7:11 a.m. tee time (11:11 p.m. PDT Thursday night) was during the worst weather--cold, wet, breezy.

Said Coltart: “It was pretty miserable.”