‘I’m going to go on a tear soon’ - Mickelson welcomes return to form

Phil Mickelson has been picking the brains of some of his old tour colleagues in a bid to turn around his game, and it would appear to be working.

Lefty has hit on Brendan Steele to help him with his driving and has sought advice from Cameron Tringale to work on his putting.

“Tringale is one of the best putters in the game. I’ve been talking to him about putting. I’m putting great,” insisted Mickelson.

Maybe he has found something. Mickelson, whose form has been indifferent to say the least on the LIV Golf circuit since being one of the high-profile defectors from the PGA Tour to the Saudi-backed start-up, marked his return to the Masters by comfortably surviving the cut in adding a 69 to his opening 71 for a midway total of 140, four under.

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Having won the PGA at the age of 51 two years ago, Mickelson would need something special over the weekend to add another glorious chapter to his career and claim a fourth career green jacket: “I’m going to go on a tear soon. Even though the scores haven’t shown it, I’m going to have a really low one. When that happens and it clicks, then the game feels easy again.”

Opinions differ over Brooks Koepka club incident

Veteran caddie Craig Connelly didn’t get too worked up over the alleged incident involving Brooks Koepka’s bagman Ricky Elliott during the first round, where he appeared to mouth the word “five” to Gary Woodland’s caddie Brennan Little.

“Just watched the Brooks ‘incident’. Absolute NON STARTER! Happens every single day, multiple times a round and if there’s a caddie on here who says they’ve never done it, then they’re talking shite! Also, at Augusta there’s spotters at the side of the fairway and on Par 3 tees,” tweeted Connelly.

On the Golf Channel, however, analyst Paul McGinley wasn’t so sure there was nothing to see: “It’s very obvious ... it’s staggering that they’ve denied it because the evidence is there. This is common practice on tour, whether you like it or not, it happens in every professional tournament around the world ... this is not considered a serious breach among the players.”

The Augusta National competition committee questioned Elliott and others in the group about the incident and said “all were adamant that no advice was given or requested”. Consequently, the committee decided no rule was breached. Expect less sign language going forward.

Rainy days in Georgia as well as nights

If the primary image of the Masters at Augusta National is of basking in lovely sunshine, there’s an interesting statistic which actually shows that rain in Georgia isn’t just in the lyrics of a song and certainly more common than people imagine.

There have been many a rainy day in Georgia through the week of past tournaments, with rainfall experienced during 47 of the 86 tournaments up to this year.

In that time, eight days of play were postponed but four days were made up by scheduling 36 holes in one day in 1936, 1938, 1939 and 2003. The last Monday finish due to weather occurred in 1983, when Seve Ballesteros won.

The forecast is a 100 per cent chance of rain for Saturday’s third round, but play will continue if the course remains playable and there are no electric currents in the air.

Number: 17

There have been 17 sudden-death playoffs in the Masters since its inception. The most recent was in 2017, when Sergio Garcia defeated Justin Rose with a birdie on the first playoff hole.

Quote-Unquote

“I think you look at the history of Brooks, he’s always lived for these moments. He’s very similar to Tiger in that standpoint, that the other tournaments never seem to bring out the best in him, where the Majors did, and it was no different here this week” – former US Open champion Gary Woodland after playing the opening 36 holes with Brooks Koepka.