Surge and Survival

It was cut day at the 87th PGA Championship here Friday and it almost included the early ouster of 10-time major champion Tiger Woods, who had to make birdie on the par-five finishing hole to be invited back today.

It was a cut-and-run day for Phil Mickelson, though, who fired a five-under-par 65 and separated himself from Thursday’s leaderboard-rugby scrum at Baltusrol Golf Club.

Mickelson stands eight-under at 132 through 36 holes, having stepped on the golf gas after starting the day in a six-way tie for the lead.

Jerry Kelly matched Mickelson with his own 65 in the afternoon and is at 135 through 36 holes, three shots back.

“I’m feeling confident,” Mickelson said before cautioning, “There’s a lot of golf left.”

There is golf left for Woods too, but this was not the sort of freaky Friday the world’s top-ranked player had in mind.

He started the day in 113th position and found himself as many as seven over par during his round, yet he somehow scrambled for four backside birdies to make the cut “on the number” at four-over 144.

If he had failed, it would have been Woods’ first missed cut in 36 majors as a professional. In May, after a record 142 consecutive tournaments, Woods finally missed a cut by a shot in the Byron Nelson tournament at Irving, Texas.

Woods knew walking up the 18th fairway that he needed a birdie to play the weekend and told caddie Steve Williams he was not going to let sportswriters “write that article.”

“Sorry to disappoint you guys,” Woods later joked.

To get the necessary birdie, he walloped his drive on the 554-yard hole, hit a seven-iron onto the green and two-putted.

Kelly’s brilliant day, which included an eagle at the par-five 18th, earned him a pairing today with Mickelson.

“That’s exactly what I love,” Kelly said, “just to be in that theater is going to be fun.”

Four shots off Mickelson’s pace, at four-under 136, are Davis Love III, Lee Westwood and Rory Sabbatini.

Defending champion Vijay Singh, who shot three-under 67, is three-under overall at 137 and only five shots off the lead.

A win by England’s Westwood might qualify as press-stopping news, considering the last European to win the PGA Championship was Scotland’s Tommy Armour, who defeated Gene Sarazen, 1-up, in 1930, when it was a match-play tournament.

For years a popular long-shot pick in office pools, Westwood finished at two-under 68 on Friday and credited the uptick to having recently consulted a psychologist.

Could Westwood tell us his name?

“No,” Westwood said.

Love won the 1997 PGA title at Winged Foot, and has not won a major since. He did finish strongly at this year’s U.S. Open and opened here with consecutive rounds of two-under 68.

Sabbatini said he didn’t think he was going to play in the PGA as he anticipated the birth of his daughter, Tylee Joe, who was born a week ago Wednesday.

Sabbatini followed his first-round 67 with a one-under 69 and announced afterward that golf was the least of his concerns and that he was homesick.

“I had no intention of being here,” Sabbatini said. “It’s almost tough. I’m a little sad. I would rather be at home with my little girl.”

Even at majors, golf sometimes takes a back seat.

Near the No. 4 green, for instance, shortly after Woods had chipped over water at the par-three from a drop zone, a large limb from a red oak tree cracked and fell, injuring three people.

The heat was also an issue again, with players going through shirts the way stage actors do during costume changes. Wilting as he listed down the 17th fairway, Mike Weir actually sent someone to the merchandise tent to buy him a new shirt.

These distractions did little to deter Mickelson, who shot five-under 31 on his front nine and showed flashes of resiliency and wizardry on the 7,392-yard layout.

Falling in love again with the cut-fade shot that helped him win his first major at the 2004 Masters, Mickelson is dumping yardage with the idea of keeping his tee shots in the Springfield area code.

Why he fell out of love with the fade was a question he was not immediately ready to answer.

“That’s probably a question I should answer later, after the week is over,” he said.

The cut allows Mickelson, a left-hander, to work the ball right-to-left and land it softly on the fairways.

“I’m trying to get the ball to come in dead,” he explained.

Based on his recent play in majors, Mickelson had all but been written off as a serious contender here. After finishing 10th at the Masters, he struggled to a tie for 33rd at the U.S. Open, then tied for 60th at the British.

Mickelson said he didn’t concern himself with being classified by some as a has-been.

He said, “My only focus right now is that this is the last major championship this year, and I want to put everything I have into this one event.”

Mickelson put everything he had into Friday’s round. By the time he had signed for his 65, in fact, he had a 13-shot lead over Woods -- before Woods had taken his first shot.

Mickelson’s fantastic front-nine started with a four-foot birdie putt on the par-four 11th. Birdies at No. 13 and No. 14 pushed him to six under. He dropped a shot on the next hole but got it back on the par-three 16th and then closed his first nine with a Baltusrol bang -- making birdie on the 650-yard par-five 17th before rolling in an 18-foot eagle putt at the par-five 18th.

Mickelson was eight-under overall at the turn, and bounced back from a double-bogey at the par-four first with birdies on No. 3 and No. 4.

He bogeyed No. 6 too, but fought back to eight-under with a bounce-back birdie on the 380-yard eighth hole.

“I think that probably the thing that I was most pleased with was the way I was able to let go of some bad shots and forget about it and move on,” Mickelson said.

Mickelson moves on to Round 3.

And so, by the width of a flag stick, does Tiger Woods.