Planet Golf — 06 September 2014 by GW staff and news services
Mickelson withdraws; eyes Ryder Cup

CHERRY HILLS VILLAGE, Colo. — Phil Mickelson will miss the FedExCup Playoffs finale for the first time in his career after withdrawing from the BMW Championship following the second round.

Mickelson shot a 6-over 76 on Friday at Cherry Hills, leaving him 14 shots off the lead heading into the weekend and tied for 63rd in the 69-man field. It also left him projected to finish 64th in the FedExCup points race after he started the week in 56th. Just the top 30 advance to next week’s Tour Championship, the event that decides the FedExCup winner.

Mickelson would have needed to finish fourth or higher to have any chance at slipping inside the top 30.

“My primary goal is to rest and prepare for the Ryder Cup,” Mickelson said in a statement released early Saturday morning. “Without a chance to contend at the Tour Championship, the most important thing for me now is to prepare for the Ryder Cup.”

Mickelson was also playing in his fifth Tour event in the last six weeks.

Coming into this year’s FedExCup Playoffs, Mickelson was one of just three players to have advanced to the Tour Championship every year since 2007, the inaugural year of the Playoffs. Hunter Mahan and Steve Stricker were the other two.

Mahan won The Barclays to assure himself of another trip to East Lake, but Stricker did not play in this year’s Playoffs and thus had already been eliminated. And now Mickelson is out. In his first seven trips to the FedExCup Playoffs, Mickelson had never finished lower than 15th in points.

Mickelson entered this year’s Playoffs after finishing second at the PGA Championship, his only top-10 finish of the season. But he finished 78th at The Barclays and was one of the players who made the cut but did not play the final round.

Last week at the Deutsche Bank Championship, Mickelson tied for 45th.

He opened this week’s event with an even-par 70 but triple-bogeyed the par-3 12th on Friday and suffered four more bogeys.

Mickelson finished fifth in Ryder Cup points to automatically qualify for the U.S. team that plays against Europe later this month in Scotland. It will be a record 10th consecutive Ryder Cup appearance.

Related Articles

Share

About Author

(0) Readers Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.