Mickelson makes his own luck

ONE moment typified Phil Mickelson's eventful third round at Loch Lomond and like pretty much everything else he did yesterday, it went his way.

A triumph against the odds. Mickelson went for the green in two at the par-5 third hole and found the edge of the water, short right of the putting surface, lucky to be alive if truth be told. The ball was there to be hit, wet but not drowned, and certainly playable for a man of Mickelson's craft. He donned his waterproof trousers and stepped into the drink, from where he chipped and putted for birdie.

To say it was an unlikely outcome was to put it mildly. If it was a stroke of good fortune then it was taken advantage of. Not many in the field managed to do what Mickelson did. Not many scrambled as effectively in the stiffening breeze. He shot 68 and leads by one from the unheralded Frenchman, Gregory Havret, and his odds of victory have shortened again for the third consecutive day. The bookmakers can't see him beaten. And the bookmakers are good judges.

"With that wind, anything under par is a good score," said Mickelson.

"There are lots of over-par scores this afternoon. It was tough out there but it was fun. I almost did something today that I'd never done before. I almost found every fairway. I only missed, the 14th, where I went it for one and found the rough. I was kinda kicking myself for doing that. If I'd just laid-up I would have had the perfect stat but I enjoyed myself out there. You know, there's lots of golf to be played and there are lots of great players on the leaderboard but it would be great to win abroad because I haven't really done that. To win in Scotland, in the Home of Golf, would be tremendous."

Mickelson only dropped one shot, which was an achievement in itself. And that came in unusual circumstances on the 10th hole when his approach got buried so deep in a greenside bunker that he had to declare it unplayable and take a penalty drop. He regained that shot on the 13th when a sweet approach gave him a six footer for birdie. He took his chance and made it home safely from there.

Ian Poulter should be in Mickelson's slipstream this morning. He's been in good form this week, on and off the course. He seems to be in a happy place at the moment and it showed in his first two rounds and again yesterday when he covered the front nine in four under. At the turn, he was 10-under for the tournament and had that quick stride, the confident stride of a man on a mission. Then it all went horribly wrong.

His game left him coming in. His driving became loose and he didn't have it in him to recover from some of the horrible spots he put himself in. From shadowing Mickelson he slid away from him rapidly, giving back all those lovely shots by the end. He is now a surely insurmountable six shots adrift of the American when he should be tucked in behind and ready to pounce.

By the time he dropped shots on the 16th and 18th his demeanour had transformed. After his second round he joshed about how he spent the week before racing Formula 1 cars with his mates. He didn't have much to say at all after his third round.

Rightly, he was furious with himself.

So it's left largely to the lesser-lights to chase Mickelson. Havret, a Steady Eddie type once he'd calmed down after a scatter-gun birdie-bogey-birdie-bogey beginning, Steve Webster, Louis Oosthuizen, Phillip Archer and Jose Manuel Lara are closest to him but they all have the look of the light brigade about them, even if they were doggedness personified. Havret is only one shot back but he hasn't won a tournament in over six years so you would be slow enough to lump the mortgage on the Frenchman.

Of the box-office names, Ernie Els is the only one within firing distance of Mickelson but his chances have to be considered remote.

There was none of that effortless play from Friday on display yesterday; it was a grind instead. He shot 71 and, rather worryingly for his Open prospects next week, had to fight hard to do so.

The big mover? His name doesn't exactly trip off the tongue but from early yesterday the name of Lodewicus Theodorus Oosthuizen - call him Louis - started making steady progress up the leaderboard. Oosthuizen is 24 years old and has had Els as a mentor since joining his Foundation in 1999. Injuries have slowed his development but yesterday you could easily see what Els saw all those years ago. Indeed Els could have done with some of the young man's magic in his own dispiriting third round. Oosthuizen's 64 brought an eagle on the third hole and a blistering inward nine of just 30 strokes including birdies on four of the last five holes, a feat that not many boast of around here.

There's a bit of fun in him as well. He goes by the nickname Shrek, and has the Scottish ogre as a headcover on his driver. "My fiends call me Shrek and I don't know why," said the South African, who can't have any mirrors in his house back in Mossel Bay. "I've got no idea of the significance but I've had the nickname for three or four years. I bought the headcover myself because if my friends see that I'm playing along with it they won't bother calling me it all the time."

Doubt that somehow, Louis.

He is competing for a big prize this afternoon, not all of it to do with money either. There's that last qualifying slot in the Open up for grabs as well, available to the first non-exempt man in the top ten here. Oosthuizen reckoned he'd need another 64 to claim it but that was early in the day, long before the wind started to pick up and blew the field backwards in their tracks. "I'd need a 64 to have a chance of the Open slot," he said. "But it's not in mind right now. My flight back to South Africa is on Thursday but I wouldn't mind changing it to play in the Open."

Oosthuizen started yesterday six shots adrift of Els, his countryman and idol, and finished one ahead of him. There's two sides to that story, of course. Els, who played beautifully for his 66 on Friday, started yesterday in the same thrilling vein with two birdies in his first three holes. At that point his assertion that he was close to returning to his championship-winning form of old still looked on the money. Els faded badly thereafter, however. He wrestled with his game all day, dropping shots on the 6th, 7th, 11th and 13th before finding a little joy with a birdie on the 14th and another on the 18th to finish level for the day. Ernie was running to stand still, as he has been for quite some time now.

For such a high-quality, field the immediate chasers are not the type of men that would have kept Mickelson awake through the night. We expected Sergio Garcia to get himself in the hunt in the third round but he needed a birdie on the final hole to shoot 71 for six under. Other marquee acts such as Luke Donald, Lee Westwood, Darren Clarke and Angel Cabrera couldn't break 70 either. Their challenges have gone. We have seen some stunning finishes here in recent years. Johan Edfors shot 63 on the Sunday to win last year's championship and Thomas Levet did the same two years before that. It's going to take heroics of that order to stop the American.

Leaderboard

201 Phil Mickelson (US) 65 68 68

202 Gregory Havret (France) 68 64 70

204 Steve Webster (Britain) 68 67 69

205 Philip Archer (Britain) 68 68 69

Louis Oosthuizen (South Africa) 70 71 64

206 Ernie Els (South Africa) 69 66 71

Mikko Ilonen (Finland) 66 70 70

Jose Manuel Lara (Spain) 67 65 74

207 Alejandro Canizares (Spain) 72 67 68

Pelle Edberg (Sweden) 67 68 72

Ross Fisher (Britain) 69 69 69

Sergio Garcia (Spain) 71 65 71

Ian Poulter (Britain) 69 67 71

208 Oliver Fisher (Britain) 70 71 67

Peter Hanson (Sweden) 72 67 69

Graeme McDowell (Britain) 70 71 67

Shaun Micheel (US) 67 71 70

Miles Tunnicliff (Britain) 68 67 73

Boo Weekley (US) 68 66 74

209 Luke Donald (Britain) 70 69 70

Ian Garbutt (Britain) 71 69 69

Soren Hansen (Denmark) 65 73 71

Peter Hedblom (Sweden) 69 70 70

Simon Khan (Britain) 67 67 75

Richard Sterne (South Africa) 72 69 68

Graeme Storm (Britain) 65 72 72

Alessandro Tadini (Italy) 72 68 69

Lee Westwood (Britain) 65 74 70

210 Robert-Jan Derksen (Holland) 69 68 73

Richard Finch (Britain) 68 70 72

Soren Kjeldsen (Denmark) 67 74 69

Thomas Levet (France) 70 67 73

Jyoti Randhawa (India) 71 69 70

Jeev Milkha Singh (India) 72 67 71

Patrik Sjoeland (Sweden) 68 71 71

211 Angel Cabrera (Argentina) 71 70 70

Mark Foster (Britain) 66 74 71

Ignacio Garrido (Spain) 72 68 71

Garry Houston (Britain) 69 71 71

Andrew Marshall (Britain) 70 71 70

212 Thomas Bjorn (Denmark) 69 70 73

Gregory Bourdy (France) 70 67 75

Paul Broadhurst (Britain) 71 70 71

Ariel Canete (Argentina) 68 68 76

Darren Clarke (Britain) 71 67 74

Bradley Dredge (Britain) 68 72 72

Raphael Jacquelin (France) 69 70 73

Peter Lawrie (Ireland) 68 73 71

Paul McGinley (Ireland) 68 70 74

Phillip Price (Britain) 71 67 74

Lee Slattery (Britain) 69 71 72

Kyron Sullivan (Britain) 70 69 73

213 Martin Erlandsson (Sweden) 72 69 72

Paul Lawrie (Britain) 68 71 74

Sam Walker (Britain) 67 69 77

214 David Drysdale (Britain) 70 69 75

James Hepworth (Britain) 71 70 73

Andrew McLardy (South Africa) 71 68 75

Matthew Millar (Australia) 72 69 73

Andres Romero (Argentina) 67 67 80

Yang Yong-Eun (South Korea) 73 68 73

215 Peter O'Malley (Australia) 70 70 75

216 Mardan Mamat (Singapore) 69 72 75

Oliver Wilson (Britain) 74 67 75

218 Joakim Baeckstroem (Sweden) 72 68 78

Wade Ormsby (Australia) 70 70 78