Tiger Woods and Patrick Reed sit out after morning loss at Ryder Cup

Laura Davies opened with a 4-under 68 despite finishing with two bogeys Monday, giving her a one-shot lead over Juli Inkster after one round of the Senior LPGA Championship.

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At 7,643 yards, Torrey Pines was the longest course in major championship history when it hosted the 2008 U.S. Open. So what was Phil Mickelson’s plan of attack for the first major at his hometown muni? Eschew the driver. With firm summer conditions and thick rough lining the fairways, Mickelson decided to start the week without a driver in his bag. “I don’t really want to hit it past 300 yards on most of the par-4s because it starts running into the rough,” Mickelson said back then. “And I felt like with the fairways being firm like they were today, all I needed was 3-wood on the holes.” Mickelson may employ a similar strategy this week. He expects to hit a 2-wood on about half his tee shots this week. But Mickelson, who’s made no secret of his pursuit of extra clubhead speed in recent years, also will have his driver in the bag. “There’s a lot of holes where it kind of turns or tightens,” he said in his pre-tournament press conference. “That 2-wood, I’ll call it, seems to fit the right yardage on a lot of those holes for me.” Mickelson’s 5-degree driver, the Callaway Epic Speed Triple Diamond driver with a Fujikura Ventus Black shaft, also will be in the bag. It’s the same club that helped him hit big bombs in his win at last month’s PGA Championship. Most impressive was the 366-yard tee shot he hit to set up a crucial birdie on the tournament’s 69th hole. In 2008, Mickelson opted for a Callaway FT Tour 3-wood — a 13-degree version bent to 11.5 degrees and equipped with a 43-inch Mitsubishi Diamana White Board shaft – in lieu of his driver. However, over the opening two days of the tournament, Mickelson struggled off the tee. On the brutally challenging and lengthy California course, Mickelson found himself not just in the rough for most of Thursday and Friday, but short too. “When I made some terrible swings and hit in the rough it kind of defeats the game plan because now I’m short and crooked,” he said. Following rounds of 71 and 75, Mickelson abandoned the plan and put his FT-5 Tour driver (bent at 8.5 degrees) back in the bag for the weekend. Being 4 over par forced his hand. He needed to make birdies if he was going to contend at Torrey Pines. As he explained to media that week, being 4 over par forced his hand, and the need to have more short irons into holes to help him score was what brought the driver back into play. “Why did I put the driver in the bag today? … I needed to try to make some birdies and get a few shorter irons in,” he said. He was undone by a quadruple-bogey 9 on the par-5 13th, though, and shot 76 in the third round to end his chances. He closed with his low round of the week, a 3-under 68, to salvage a T18 finish. Since then, Lefty has won multiple majors and also experimented with going without driver again at Merion at the 2013 U.S. Open. Mickelson won the 2006 Masters with two drivers in the bag, an experiment he repeated at the 2019 Memorial Tournament presented by Workday. Two years ago at Muirfield Village, he reflected on his decision to start the 2008 U.S. Open without a driver. At the Memorial Tournament in 2019, Mickelson carried multiple drivers, where he also reflected on his 2018 driverless experiment at Torrey Pines. “That was a mistake, obviously. What a great idea that was,” he said. “I’m going to play with a 3-wood. And then I missed the fairways with the 3-wood. That was ridiculous. That didn’t work out.” Mickelson will have a different setup this week and hope for a different result. It would be a storybook victory for the World Golf Hall of Famer.

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DUBLIN, Ohio — Daniel Summerhays shot a 4-under 68 that took him from a five-shot deficit to a three-shot lead Saturday in the Memorial. More than his solid round was a collapse by Jason Dufner, who lost his lead with four straight bogeys on the front nine and hit two balls in the water on the back nine for a 77. Dufner went from the 36-hole record to four shots out of the lead. At least he’s still in the game, and he has plenty of company. Summerhays was at 13-under 203. Matt Kuchar, who won the Memorial four years ago, ran off three straight birdies on the back nine and shot a 67 that gets him in the final group with Summerhays as he tries to end 82 PGA TOUR starts without a victory. The last three winners of the Memorial had never won on the PGA TOUR, and Summerhays fits that mold. The 33-year-old from Utah is in his seventh year. Bubba Watson overcame a heckler on the 18th hole with one last birdie for a 68. He was four shots behind along with Justin Thomas (69) and Dufner. Rickie Fowler (72) salvaged an up-and-down day and was five behind. But it all started with Dufner. “Today was pretty pathetic on all accounts, so have to play better tomorrow,” he said. It started on the second hole when Dufner missed the green to the left from the rough and took bogey. He missed a 6-foot par putt on the third, then hit into the right bunker on the par-3 4th and made another bogey. And then he three-putted the par-5 fifth for a fourth straight bogey. Dufner was still tied for the lead when his wedge on the par-5 11th spun back down the green and into the water, leading to double bogey. It was a three-shot swing when Summerhays made birdie, and Dufner never caught up. He had said his breathing exercises over putting didn’t mean he would always have good days, and this was a bad one. Dufner had a pair of three-putts, and he twice missed birdie putts from 6 feet. He capped off his day by pulling his tee shot into the water and making another bogey. “The tournament is not over,” Dufner said. “It will be over tomorrow.” Summerhays wasn’t thinking about cutting into the lead when he started. He wasn’t thinking much about anything except the shot at hand, and he kept hitting good ones in the midst of Dufner’s streak of bogeys. “A train wreck can happen at any moment,” Summerhays said. “And that’s why it’s such a great golf course because it does test everything. Legitimately from the first hole to the 18th hole, there’s a double bogey somewhere in there.” Jordan Spieth knows the feeling. He was right in the mix until catching a downhill like in the bunker left of the par-3 eighth. He tried to play a perfect shot and barely got it out, then chipped down to 5 feet and missed the putt, making double bogey. Spieth started the back nine with two straight birdies only to follow with two straight bogeys. It added to a 71, and he was six shots behind.

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