SAN DIEGO – His frustration was obvious. Whether that frustration was with his second shot on the par-5 13th hole, which sailed hopelessly into a canyon, or the incessant ding of cell phones was unclear.
Phil Mickelson backed away from his second shot on No. 13 numerous times because of noise from the gallery and following his wayward shot he was lucky to make a bogey-6. After having to take a drop, Mickelson’s 46-yard fourth shot hit the flagstick, ricocheting and disappearing into the nasty greenside rough.
Bad luck strikes Mickelson on 13th at U.S. Open
“It’s part of professional golf. You have to learn to deal with it,” Mickelson said of the cell-phone noise. “I don’t understand why you just can’t turn that little button on the side into silent. I probably didn’t deal with it internally as well as I could have or as well as I need to.”
Mickelson said there were noise distractions on the next “three or four shots” but he also admitted it was “the worst lay-up.”
“The way I want to play that hole is hit it in the fairway or first cut where I was at and get it as far up in those bunkers as I can,” said Mickelson, who shot a first-round 75 in his bid to win back-to-back major titles. “I feel like that gives me the best chance to score the lowest there. I didn’t really factor in missing it way left. I didn’t really think that that was going to happen.”