Shot onto hotel balcony dooms Phil Mickelson's miracle Open attempt
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — And it was all going so swimmingly.
Phil Mickelson was swinging through the British Open, doing what Phil Mickelson does, which is to say putting together an astonishing last-ditch run at a major. He'd worked his way down to 10-under, 6-under for his round, just two strokes behind the leaders. Sure, he needed to go birdie-birdie on the final two holes to have a chance, but hey, he had a chance. He stepped onto the tee at the 17th, looked out at the sign that reads OLD COURSE HOTEL, drew back, and ...
Yeah. That shot went way, way, WAY right. So far right that it ended up on someone's balcony:
That brought any last hope Mickelson might have had of notching his first win since 2013's British Open to a crashing halt. (It may have scared the hell out of someone in that room, too.) Mickelson ended up triple-bogeying the hole and finished out the 2015 British Open at 7-under. Not terrible in the absolute sense, but when you consider that Mickelson had been on a six-birdie, no-bogey round before approaching the Road Hole 17th, well, it started to look a little more tarnished.
Afterward, Mickelson tried to put a positive spin on the round, saying he was pleased with his play and so on, but there's not really any way to whitewash that 17th-hole mess. Fortunately for Mickelson's sake, Phil's misfire wasn't the worst collapse of the tournament, not while onetime leader Dustin Johnson was out there throwing up three straight bogeys at roughly the same time.
As for that ball? Its fate remains unknown. The shot was out of bounds, so the characteristically free-swinging Mickelson didn't even have a chance to take a circus shot. Would he have if the rules had permitted it? "I've hit some crazy shots in my life." he said. "I don't know if I'd climb up and do that."
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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter.
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