Phil Mickelson’s fall from grace highlighted by US Open woes

An unintentionally comedic moment was delivered when Phil Mickelson, Louis Oosthuizen and Shane Lowry wandered towards their second shots at the Country Club’s opening hole on Friday.

“Hey Louis,” bellowed a Bostonian. “Great job on the win last week.”

It was Charl Schwartzel who prevailed in the opening LIV Golf event at the Centurion Club. Easy though it may be to mix up South African golfers – neither Schwartzel nor Oosthuizen has much by way of profile – this proved a subtle nod towards general or wilful ignorance of the LIV scene. It is taking place somewhere in the ether but the paying public are not engaged with further detail.

At the time of the errant gallery cry – this group played the back nine first – Mickelson was 11 over par for the 122nd US Open. A mere 13 months on from capturing hearts and minds with a glorious US PGA Championship triumph Mickelson has become a competitive irrelevance. He is destined never to win his national Open, a notable gap in an otherwise iconic career. It is also now a tarnished one.

Mickelson’s situation is about far more than what sits in his trophy cabinet. He has embarked on such an incredible act of self-sabotage that he was almost pitied as he limped towards the second-round finish line. He reached that point after shooting an error-strewn 73 for an 11 over par total. This marked a third missed cut in Mickelson’s last six US Open appearances. He also cracked a spectator on the head with his tee shot at the 3rd, which rather summed up his wayward play.

Any sense that Mickelson, the poster boy for Saudi Arabia’s ongoing golf disruption model, would be heckled at Brookline proved unfounded. “Go get em Phil” and “You’re the man Phil” were the regular cries. Yet it was all rather