Phil Mickelson fires 69 at Masters, 'close to going on a tear'

AUGUSTA, Ga. — When three-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson walked off the 18th green after the second round at Augusta National Golf Club on Friday, he was 4 under after 36 holes and beating defending champion Scottie Scheffler and world No. 2 golfer Rory McIlroy.

It wasn't exactly what anyone expected coming into the week from the 52-year-old Mickelson, who hadn't played well in his first season with LIV Golf and hadn't been much better this year.

But Mickelson said he felt he was close to playing really good golf and returning to the Masters, a tournament he skipped last year but loves the most, has helped him find his form.

«I'm close to going on a tear,» Mickelson said. «Even though the scores haven't shown it, like I'm hitting so many good shots, pretty soon I'm going to have a really low one. When that happens and it clicks, then the game feels easy again. Then I stop putting pressure on myself, and the scores just start to fall into place.»

Mickelson said he felt like he hit the ball better in Thursday's opening round when he shot 1-under 71 than he did Friday when he was 3 under. Mickelson hit 9 of 18 greens (he hit 12 on Thursday) and 11 of 14 fairways for the second straight round.

«I actually did not hit it anywhere near as well as I did yesterday,» Mickelson said. «But I scored well. I got it up and down, made a lot of good putts. With one exception of a poor chip on 6, I had a lot of good saves around the green, bunker shots, good 6-footers, and scored. That's what I needed to do yesterday, and I could have gone really low.»

The six-time major champion started the second round by making a 27-foot birdie putt on the first hole. He carded four straight pars from there before running into trouble on the