Mickelson's 58 may not have counted but he's still in hunt

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Mickelson's up-and-down round of 67 included three bogeys and an eagle.

ORLANDO -- The week started with a round of 58.

Unfortunately, it didn't count toward Phil Mickelson's tally at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard. But the affable lefthander has still managed to pull within a shot of the lead through two rounds at at Bay Hill.

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Mickelson fired an adventurous 67 on Friday that even he called -- in understatement -- "interesting" and included 11 one-putt greens, two water balls and a holed pitching wedge from 135 yards for an eagle at the eighth hole. It tied his low round of the season in relation to par.

Ah, but it wasn't a 58. Mickelson made 12 birdies and an eagle in that practice round on Monday at The Plantation Golf Club, a Fred Couples design in Indio, Calif., that he says has greens similar to the ones at Bay Hill. It marked the second time Mickelson had broken 60.

"I ended up getting the putter going there, as well," Mickelson said almost matter-of-factly. "That was fun."

If Monday's round at The Plantation was fun, Friday's was like a ride on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad a few miles away at the Magic Kingdom. The 67 was vintage Mickelson -- a mixture of thrills, spills and penalty strokes that kept his ample and adoring gallery on its collective toes.

"I have a tendency to have up-and-down rounds like that," Mickelson acknowledged with one of those sheepish grins of his. "But it's fun. I enjoy trying to create shots and hit shots and take on some of these pins and make birdies, and unfortunately I tend to make a few mistakes at times, as well."

Even with those mistakes, though, Mickelson enters the weekend with a legitimate shot at winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational for the second time in his career. He has three other top-five finishes at Bay Hill and nine straight made cuts there.

"I haven't really been in contention this year,'" said Mickelson, whose best finish in five starts is a tie for eighth at Pebble Beach. "I haven't really had my game where I wanted it to be. But I could tell heading into this week that it was getting there, and I was very confident heading into these two rounds. So I'm excited about the weekend."

Mickelson used just 23 putts in the second round -- nearly six below his year-to-date average -- in what he called his best putting performance of 2010. The four days he spent with Dave Stockton last week are certainly paying dividends.

In fact, Mickelson went so far as to call Friday's round a "turning point." He certainly seemed to putt with the same kind of confidence he had at the end of last season when he won THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola and his first World Golf Championships title.

"I wasn't stressing over it," Mickelson said, adding that now he doesn't feel like he has to attack every pin in order to have a chance at birdie. "I just feel different with the blade. It started a few days ago."

Mickelson started on the back nine and made four birdies, including three in a row beginning at No. 11, and added two more on the front. But a case can certainly be made that none were as critical as the bogey putts he made from 12 feet at No. 3 and 17 at the sixth after putting his tee shot in the water at each hole.

"You could say every shot is equal, and that's true, but when you make a double, it's kind of a devastating feeling, because now you have multiple holes to make it up,' Mickelson said. "Whereas if you just make one bogey, everybody is going to make bogeys. It happens. It's not that big of a deal. Those putts are critical."

Mickelson, who has swing coach Butch Harmon at his side at Bay Hill, will be playing in next week's Shell Houston Open leading up to the Masters, where he will be seeking his third Green Jacket. In the first three months of the season, though, he's only played two weeks in a row on one other occasion.

He had skipped the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship for a family vacation before his wife Amy had another treatment in her on-going battle with breast cancer. So he added Bay Hill to his schedule and the decision seems prescient right now.

"I think for me it's important to get into contention and get that feel and that nervousness of being in one of the last few groups, having a chance to win the golf tournament, looking at the leaderboard, being able to focus on your own game, all of those things combined," Mickelson said. "I haven't had that this year. I haven't played the way I expect to.

"And heading into this week I feel very confident with where my game was headed but I still need to shoot the numbers. Now that I feel that's coming, I still need to get into contention and be able to perform and it's important for me to do that heading into Augusta"