Taylor rallies to win Pebble Beach for 1st win in a decade

Taylor ran off four straight birdies on the back nine to close with a 7-under 65, and he wasn’t sure it was enough when Mickelson stood over a 5-foot birdie putt to force a playoff.

Mickelson began the day two shots clear at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, seemingly set for a coronation that would lead to his fifth tournament title and first win in almost three years.

There is beating the odds, and then there is doing what Vaughn Taylor did Sunday to win the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.

Lefty had a five-foot birdie putt at the last which would have sent the tournament into a playoff, but his putt was 15 inches wide of the cup and he was forced to settle for second place.

National coach Ian Rae is hoping to see Scotland’s strong showing at Leopard Creek in the inaugural African Amateur Stroke-Play Championship replicated in the future on the European Tour.

The Masters is eight weeks down the road.

The Pebble Beach field was flooded with players in the top 10.

One of my favorite stats to prop up right now is that Tiger Woods has won a golf tournament more recently than Phil Mickelson. Spieth reminds me of Tiger in that it is genuinely surprising when he finishes outside the top 10 of any tournament anywhere in the world. “I worked so hard and I’m at a loss for words right now. His short game is ridiculous”.

The finish was vintage Mickelson.

The 39-year-old then proceeded to make four consecutive birdies from the 13th to 16th, which included a sensational 28-foot birdie putt at the 16th. He poured in a 12-foot putt for birdie on the 17th to get within one shot of Vaughn Taylor. The putt looked good.

A second stamp was added on the other side and Mickelson crossed out the incorrect stamp with a pen, adding a large black mark that was easy to spot.

“Just absolutely incredible”, Taylor said of his one-shot victory over Mickelson, a five-time major champion already in the World Golf Hall of Fame.

“I played a little tighter than I wanted”, he added.

“But I still think I have some good golf left in me and I’m glad the way I putted this week was probably better than I putted many weeks previous year when I was anchored”. “I was trying to kind of free it up, but I didn’t salvage pars on some holes that I needed to salvage pars”. “I lost confidence, a bit of my game, but I kept grinding and kept at it”. In the end, Mickelson missed a makeable birdie on the final hole to give Taylor a one-stroke win on -17. The 2013 U.S. Open champion has been easing himself into the 2016 season and this was just his second start of the calendar year on the PGA Tour – it was quite an improvement from his missed cut at the Farmers Insurance Open….