Mickelson tried gamely to recover

“Oh no,” Mickelson said as watched Ray ban sunglasses his ball crash against the railing along the edge of the bleachers beside the green. He strained to see where the ball landed, and it was not until he walked up and reached the trees and shrubbery behind the grandstand that he realized what had happened.

It was, Mickelson would say, the worst kind of luck. In his mind, he had done everything right. He had no choice but to hit a 4-iron on the 240-yard hole; he stayed left because the dips of the green make that the safest place. He would have been happy to end up on the side of the green, or even in the grandstand itself because then he would have been allowed a free drop.

“The worst I would have Oakley sunglasses made was 4,” Mickelson said. “But unfortunately, it hit the metal railing.”

And so he made a triple-bogey 6, taking two thrashes at the ball with the club head turned upside down. It was a critical blow to Mickelson, who began the day just one shot off the Masters lead and seemed like the favorite to win a fourth green jacket. Needing to first regain the ground lost, Mickelson could not overcome his disaster on the fourth and he finished with an par 72. His total of eight-under 280 left him tied for third, two shots out of the playoff between Bubba Watson and Louis burberry handbags Oosthuizen.

Afterward, Mickelson seemed unruffled. He walked off the 18th green with a small smile as the fans cheered long and loud for him. When he emerged from the scoring room, his children, Amanda, Sophia and Evan, wrapped him in a group hug and he kissed his wife, Amy. Even she was curious about what happened at No. 4, though. As Mickelson began to walk toward the area where he would meet reporters, he looked at Amy and said, “It wasn’t a bad shot.”

Moments later, he told burberry watches reporters, “I put the ball where I had to every single shot and I walked away with even par, which is disappointing.”

In many ways, it was remarkable that Mickelson ended up as close to the top of the leader board as he did. After all, his triple bogey on Sunday was his second of the tournament. On Thursday, he lost a ball on the 10th hole and made a triple bogey there, pushing his score to four over par and making it seem as if he would not be a factor on the weekend.

After a 68 on Friday and a dazzling burberry ties 66 on Saturday, however, Mickelson went off in the last pairing Sunday with Peter Hanson. He made par on the first three holes and knew exactly what he wanted to do on the fourth, a brutally long par 3 known as Flowering Crab Apple.

Mickelson made a point of practicing chips from the left side of the green early in the week, knowing that would be his bailout location. It was an “easy chip” up from there, he said, and that was where he expected he would be.

When he found his ball Burberry keychain nestled in a bush behind the grandstand, however, he had few attractive options. He could declare the ball unplayable but then would have to drop it in an equally difficult position in the brush. He could take the ball back to the tee and hit from there lying 3, but discarded that choice because the challenging tee shot was so difficult it was the reason he was aiming left in the first place.

So Mickelson, a left-hander, turned his club over, swung right-handed and popped the ball a few feet out of the brush. Then he made the same swing again, shanking the ball into the bunker next to the green. After a sharp up-and-down, he had a 6 — a number he had never imagined from a place on the course he never thought he would see.

“I look at the triple on 10, that was obviously a bad swing,” he said, referring to his Thursday debacle. “That was a terrible swing. It went way off in the junk. But I wouldn’t have done anything different on 4. That’s strategically where you have to play it to that pin on that hole. It’s the hardest par on that hole.”Hugo boss eyeglasses for men, cheap hugo boss glasses for women 2012 sale.

Mickelson tried gamely to recover, but the deficit was too much. He birdied the par 5s on the back nine, Nos. 13 and 15, but really needed at least one eagle to keep up. After missing a birdie putt on 17, he knew he essentially had no chance.

It was not the finish he envisioned and, cheap louis vuitton mens shoes when he was asked what he would take away from the day, Mickelson could only shrug.

“What will I take from this day? Third place,” he said. “It’s not what I was hoping for.”