Mickelson goes south

Lefty stumbled to a 3-over-par 75 to drop from contention.

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Phil Mickelson stared out toward the 18th green, shook his head slightly, rubbed his chin and tried to figure out where it all went wrong.

On a day for going low, Lefty went south.

Mickelson won’t need to worry about clearing a spot in his closet for a third green jacket, not after a dismal Saturday afternoon at Augusta National.

It was moving day, all right, but he moved in the wrong direction. Coming in just three strokes off the lead, Mickelson stumbled his way through a 3-over 75 that knocked him out contention heading to the final round.

“A disappointing day, obviously,” Mickelson said. “I didn’t play very well, and it was a day where there were some low scores out there.”

Mickelson’s score beat only seven other players and was epitomized by two dismal holes.

At the par-5 eighth, his third shot was right on the flag — literally. It struck the stick and spun back toward the fairway, nearly rolling off the green instead of staying up near the cup. He zoomed the putt 4 feet past the hole, then missed the comebacker. He wound up with bogey.

Then there was No. 6, the 170-yarder known as Redbud. The pin was tucked in the back right side of the green, a difficult placement that surrendered only four birdies Saturday and made it the fourth-toughest hole on the course.

The safe play was to lay it out left of the flag, take two putts and get out of there with a par. But Mickelson yanked an 8-iron into the one place he couldn’t — the back right bunker. There was no way to blast it out of sand and keep it on the top tier of the green, so all he could do was watch his ball roll back toward the left fringe, leaving a good 60 feet just to save par.

He could even make bogey. Mickelson didn’t give the uphill putt a hard enough whack and it came to a stop about 10 feet short. He missed that one, too, and took a 5.