Phil Mickelson makes staggering howler at PGA Championship

Phil Mickelson is many things. An amateurish bunker player he most certainly is not. 

And that is why we were all left absolutely flabbergasted by what we were watching during the second round of the PGA Championship.

Mickelson essentially ended his hopes of making his cut at Quail Hollow with a first round 79, just hours after arriving at the Charlotte venue conspicuously late on Wednesday night.

But to Mickelson’s credit, he came back admirably with a run of five birdies in eight holes during Friday’s second round.

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He reached the par-4 12th three-under for the day, but that was when his round took an almost unfathomable turn.

The six-time major champion, the short game wizard of his era, took four (yes, FOUR) shots to get out of what seemed to be an innocuous greenside bunker.

Like a chaotic scene from a weekend warrior in his medal, Mickelson just kept going in for more punishment, trying and failing to hack his ball out of the sand.

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Mickelson has been a professional golfer 33 years. Surely he has never spent this long trying to get out of a bunker, an opportunity that he usually turns into a work of art.

A penny for his playing partner Tommy Fleetwood’s thoughts, as the Englishman wandered closer to Mickelson almost in disbelief after his third attempt failed to avoid the lip.

Anyhow, commentators and fans alike were left stunned as Mickelson wound up with a quadruple eight to derail his outside hopes of making it inside the cut mark.

Of course, Mickelson went on to make a birdie his next two holes. In all honesty, we wouldn’t have blamed him for getting the next flight out of Charlotte.

Ben Parsons is the Senior Writer at bunkered and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.