Leaderboard: Wells Fargo Championship

Snedeker withdraws from The Open with injury

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KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. – Brooks Koepka can barely bend down to get his ball from the hole. Phil Mickelson is battling father time before our eyes. While the 2012 PGA Championship at Kiawah was a celebration of youthful virtuosity (Rory McIlroy), the 2021 PGA has become a drama of the human condition. It’s about scar tissue both literal and figurative, and man’s animating quest to catch up to his younger self. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Final round: How to follow, tee times | Details on Mickelson’s new custom driver “I felt I had a very clear picture on every shot,” said two-time PGA TOUR Champions winner Mickelson (70), who despite some shaky moments on the back nine will take a one-shot lead over Koepka (70) going into the final round Sunday. “And I’ve been swinging the club well, and so I was executing. I just need to keep that picture a few more times. “So even though it slipped a little bit today,” he added, “and I didn’t stay as focused and as sharp on a few swings, it’s significantly better than it’s been for a long time.” Louis Oosthuizen (72) is two off the lead, and nine players, including major winners Bryson DeChambeau (71) and Gary Woodland (72), are within five. “I left a lot out there,” said Koepka (31 putts). “I’ve got a chance to win, so that’s all I wanted to do today is not give back any shots and be there tomorrow with a chance, and I’ve got that.” Unlike Mickelson, Koepka, who won the PGA in 2018 and ’19, has non-age-related issues. He won the Waste Management Phoenix Open for the second time in February, but shortly after that had surgery to repair a dislocated kneecap and ligament damage to his right knee. “Even though I’m not 100 percent,” he said earlier this week, “I can still hit the shots.” He was in obvious discomfort and unable to bend down to read putts or retrieve his ball from the hole at the Masters. He missed the cut. He also missed the cut at the AT&T Byron Nelson last week, but was pleased, he said, to be able to hit a variety of shots. Kiawah is a very long walk – at 7,876 yards, it’s the longest major venue ever – but at least it’s not hilly. And he’s proven himself correct; he really has hit all the shots. Mickelson would become the oldest men’s major winner, besting Julius Boros, who was 48 at the 1968 PGA. It would be his second PGA title (2005); sixth major (and first since the 2013 Open); and 45th PGA TOUR victory (first since the 2019 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am). The Ocean Course is a slippery stage, though, and even in his prime, Mickelson – now 115th in the world, 168th in the FedExCup – was one of the most accident-prone superstars. He led by five shots early on the back nine Saturday but showed cracks over the next two hours. The most glaring of these was his wild hook at the par-4 13th hole. The ball never crossed dry land, and although Mickelson made a valiant effort – hitting three from the tee and sticking his next shot to just over 11 feet – he failed to make the putt and carded a double-bogey. His five-shot lead was down to just one over Koepka and Oosthuizen, and although he striped his tee shot to just under 7 1/2 feet at the par-3 14th hole, his birdie try missed badly. The entire sequence – his failure to birdie the par-5 11th to his failure to birdie 14 – took only an hour. Older players have flirted with winning majors. Jack Nicklaus was 58 when he contended deep into Sunday at the 1998 Masters. Tom Watson was 59 when he nearly won the 2009 Open Championship. Fred Couples was 52 when he led after round two of the 2012 Masters. None of them won. With just two victories in the last seven years, Mickelson admits his mental game isn’t what it was. He has tried dietary changes, meditation, and marathon sessions of 36 to 45 holes a day. It’s a work in progress. What remains clear is that he’s having fun. He and Steve Stricker took on Zach Johnson and Will Zalatoris in a practice round earlier this week, and Mickelson birdied the first three holes. “Phil and I were 3-up after three,” Stricker said, “and he said it loud enough so everybody could hear, ‘You know, Strick, I thought we’d be more up at this point.’ And we were 3-up after three. “Typical Phil,” he continued. “It’s good to see him out here. He has such a good time in those practice rounds and seeing everybody it seems like. He still has a tremendous amount of desire to compete at this level, and that’s why he’s doing it and that’s why he’s playing well.” He’s still got one more day of fun, if that’s what this is. He’s still got people watching.

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SOUTHAMPTON, Bermuda - Saturday afternoon, Kramer Hickok did something for the first time in his six-year professional career. He used a compass to check the wind — on the greens. Bermuda Championship host venue Port Royal GC is situated adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean, with several holes fully exposed to the wind. The third round featured sustained gusts of 15-20 mph, up to 25 mph. Hickok knew the conditions would influence the break of putts, and he wanted maximum information. "I'm asking (caddie) Billy to get the compass out and see what the wind's doing on this putt, because you have to factor that in so much, just because the wind's blowing so hard," said Hickok, who stands tied for second at 9-under into the final round of the Bermuda Championship, one back of leader Doc Redman. "Literally you've got a putt that's half a cup out left, and the wind's off the right, it will blow it left. It's different, it's fun, and you've got to embrace it." Those who embrace this week's conditions at par-71 Port Royal GC are best positioned to thrive on the seaside venue, which measures just 6,828 yards but has played to a cumulative over-par total this week (71.374). Between the second and third rounds, the wind direction flipped nearly 180 degrees, causing the most exposed holes to play in drastically different fashion. The 443-yard, par-4 11th played downwind on Friday, and Hickok nearly drove the green, his ball settling 35 yards shy of the hole - with a back hole location. Saturday, that was not the case. "I was five yards, 10 yards off the front edge yesterday, and today I bombed the drive and had 8-iron and left it 20 yards short," Hickok said. "So my 8-iron today ended up in the same spot that my driver was yesterday. It was wild. "(Today), it was 135 yards, and I thought I hit a 165-yard shot with an 8-iron, and it came up 20 yards short, and that's just because of elevation. It's already playing 12 (yards) downwind, so the wind's just going to hit it that much more. It's just hard to give yourself a 6-iron or 7-iron from 135 yards." "Yesterday to that back pin, I probably had 75 yards," added Redman, who arrived in Bermuda on the strength of two third-place finishes in his past five starts. "And then today, I had maybe 135 (yards), and I hit 7-iron. Quite a bit different." Windy conditions are to be expected in Bermuda. Players know upon arrival that they'll need to execute a variety of shots in order to keep pace, and that the nature of the challenge could differ by the day, or even the hour. "We're not playing in a dome," said Ryan Armour, one back into Sunday in chase of his second PGA TOUR title. "We're on an island in the Atlantic. This isn't Palm Springs. You've got to hit some golf shots. It's fun." With blind tee shots, narrow fairways and sharp doglegs, Port Royal facilitates players hitting from similar positions in the fairways, generally neutralizing distance off the tee. Consequently, a variety of playing styles are represented on the leaderboard through 54 holes. "Especially with this wind, being in the fairway is really nice," noted Redman, 22, who ranked No. 95 on TOUR in driving distance last season. "You can control your ball flight better, and your distance. On some holes, (distance) definitely helps, but for me, I just want to be in the fairway." "You can't really overpower this place," added Armour, 44, who ranked No. 182 in driving distance last season. "It's kind of nice knowing that everybody's going to be hitting from the same spot." It makes for an eclectic leaderboard - of the top-seven into the final round, four players are in their 20s (Redman, Hickok, Wyndham Clark, Ollie Schniederjans), and three are in their 40s (Armour, Brian Gay and Matt Jones). Similar conditions are expected Sunday, and creativity should remain at a premium on the Atlantic. With 500 FedExCup Points awarded to the winner - along with a two-year TOUR exemption, and entry into a cornucopia of top-tier events - the contenders plan to embrace the challenge. "It's such a feel game right now, the way the course is playing, which is a lot of fun," Hickok said. "You don't get that a lot on this TOUR. You've got to open up the imagination and just hit different shots. It's fun."

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