Mickelson wins PGA Championship – VnExpress Sports

The tournament, organized by the Professional Golf Association of America (PGAA), has just closed the morning of May 24, Vietnam time.

Winning the PGA Championship 2021, Mickelson won the PGA Tour title for the 45th time, winning the sixth time in the major arena. His previous five victories in the traditional major quartet including three Masters, The Open 2013 and the PGA Championship were 16 years ago.

First place this time at the age of 50, Mickelson is the oldest champion in the 105-year PGA Championship and the history of all three events, of which The Open is the oldest – from 1860. Before the American player, Julius Boros is holds the record by winning in 1968, at the age of 48 years and 142 days. On June 16, Lefty turned 51 years old.

Winning the 103rd PGA Championship, Mickelson also ended nearly eight years of major stalemate, since his last title – The Open Championship.

He ended this thirst for victory with 282 strokes on the Ocean par 72 designed by legendary architect Pete Dye, in which all three rounds scored negative – with 70 opening and penultimate runs, 69 for the final. second leg. And after 54 holes, Mickelson holds the top of the table at -7, behind are 11 players within six strokes, of which Brooks Koepka is closest, with a -6. The player born in 1990 has won four majors in which he won the PGA Championship for two consecutive years – 2018, 2019.

Mickelson hit 73 strokes in the final round to win the PGA Championship

On the closing day, Mickelson and Koepka started the last round, from hole 1. At this point, Koepka birdie still had his fellow countryman bogey.

But at the end of the first half, Koepka got a +1 round score because of a double bogey right after the opening hole, birdie on hole 6 made up for bogey on hole 7, while Mickelson was even par. During this period, golfers of nearly 30 years at the top golf added two bogeys, but made up for it with three birdies, including the closing phase of hole 5, par3 from the bunker next to the green, more than 15 meters from the goal.

Mickelson birdie on hole 5, par3 from bunker next to green

At that time, the other heavyweights were either standing still or lagging behind on the overall leaderboard.

At the end of 13 holes, Mickelson was still at the top of the table with a score of -7 like at the beginning of the round. But this time, he led four strokes, with the closest opponent being Louis Oosthuizen.

However, with the 17th hole bogey, Mickelson’s advantage remained two strokes because Oosthuizen birdie on hole 16 and kept par for the remaining two holes, while Koepka leveled the South African golfer through birdie-birdie-par from 15-17. However, Mickelson entered the 18th hole one less opponent because Oosthuizen finished at -4. The Koepka worry at the final peg was only 461 meters long in just over 15 minutes. Because he and his juniors both keep par. When Mickelson hit the green with a 9 iron, more than 4.5 meters from the hole, the crowd cheered “Lefty, Lefty, Lefty”.

He finished after two putts, which tapped the last putt.

And the public surrounded Mickelson before the coronation podium.

Koepka returned to T2 with Oosthuizen, each receiving $ 1,056 million.

On the closing day, Mickelson, despite being half a century old, still hit 316.3 yards on two holes as recorded by the PGAA for the average distance in the first hole. The whole match, he hit seven of the 14 fairways and went to the green according to the 11-hole standard.

The final leg saw Abraham Ancer hit the 18-hole record at the tournament – 65 strokes with a scoreboard of seven birdies and no bogey. Thanks to that, the Mexican player born in 1991 jumped 50 steps to T8 with a score of -1, receiving $ 263,000. Besides Ancer, this position also includes Collin Morikawa, the previous champion and Jon Rahm – the third golfer in the world (OWGR table).

Asia has the only representative in the final top 20 – Im Sung-jae comes in at T17 at even par, adding Kim Chan and new Masters champion Hideki Matsuyama in the top 25.

Quoc Huy synthetic