ORLANDO, Fla. – Phil Mickelson is on the commitment list for next week’s Players Championship. He’s remains unsure if he will be playing the tournament.
Mickelson said Friday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational that he plans to play a practice round on Tuesday to assess whether he wants to tee it up in the PGA Tour’s flagship event.
“I’ll play nine (holes) and take a look . .. I want to play it, but if I hit it like this, it’s pointless, so I’ve got to figure something out.”
Mickelson shot 78 Friday after opening the tournament with a 68 and was outside of the projected cut line at 146, 2 over par. A World Golf Hall of Famer, Mickelson, 48, has said previously that he would cut back his schedule this year and play events “that give me the best chance of winning.”
For example, he skipped his hometown Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego earlier this year, a tournament he had played 28 straight times.
“When you go to Augusta (for the Masters), I feel like I don’t have to be perfect and so I end up making better swings,” he said. “I hit a lot more good shots and my misses are playable. And then you get out here, and the fairways are tight, the rough is thicker, and then I start to steer it and I start ot make some horrific swings. I haven’t hit some of the shots I hit today in a long time, but when I get a little bit steery and don’t swing, I try to guide it. I hit some terrible shots. The Players is a place you can make some steery swings.”
Mickelson has often quipped that he doesn’t know how he won the tournament in 2007 – the first time it was played in May. This year it has moved back to a March date.
In 25 appearances in the event, Mickelson has just three top-10s and has missed the cut nine times, including five of the last six years.
“I look at it like I’m going to play 20 events,” he said. “So I want to play the ones that give me the best chance of winning. If I don’t play there next week, I’ll add something else and if I do play there I’m going to take away something else. So I’m going to end up at 20, it’s just going to be how I feel like my game feels, how it looks. If it’s softer, it’s a lot easier to play.”
Mickelson won his 44th PGA Tour title when he captured the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am last month, becoming the eighth-oldest winner in tour history.