Phil Mickelson's show-stealing bid falls just short

PICTURE the scene. Phil Mickelson needs to eagle the 72nd hole to force a play-off with Bubba Watson in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.

He's 72 yards from the hole and has a lob wedge in his hand but gets his trusty caddie, Jim 'Bones' Mackay, to walk up to the green and tend the flag.

That, of course, is what you do if you think you've got a chance of holing a shot and, all credit to Phil, he almost did, the ball finishing just two feet from the hole to create a bigger talking point almost than Watson's win.

"About 10-14 times a year I end up hitting the pin with a wedge and it ricochets all over the place and I didn't want that to happen. I also wanted to give it two chances," he explained later.

"I wanted to fly it in, possibly, or I wanted it to skip past it and maybe bring it back and give it a second chance to go in and the pin would only get in the way of that.

"So I didn't want to have the pin in if I was going to try to make it."

Mackay said it had been a "no brainer" and it certainly made for an exciting end to a great event, though why TV producers insist on showing yesterday's man Tiger Woods playing his final few holes when his race has been run is becoming quite irritating.