It's a madhouse at Crooked Stick: 4-way tie!

    Sunday, September 9, 2012
    Writing from Carmel, Indiana

    The Shootout at the Stick is not a misnomer. Phil Mickelson and his pals, including Rory McIlroy and Ryan Moore, and warm-up act Bubba Watson, are once again making a mockery of Crooked Stick Golf Club’s par of 72.
    Watson went around in 7-under-par 65 to finish at 12-under 276. Moore played the front nine in 4-under 32. Mickelson and McIlroy were 2-under for six and seven holes, respectively, with Mickelson holing a 42-foot birdie chip on the par-4 second. But he bogeyed the seventh, falling to -17 and into a four-way tie with McIlroy, Lee Westwood and Vijay Singh. It was only momentary for Singh, who bogeyed the seventh.
    And it became a four-way tie again with Dustin Johnson’s chip-in for eagle from behind the ninth green to get to -17, the latest in a four-day fireworks display. To repeat, he joins Mickelson, McIlroy and Westwood on top as of 3:13 p.m.
    Tiger Woods? He’s 1-under for the day and four off the pace.
    But it’s not easy for everybody. Bill Haas, the defending FedEx Cup champion who is desperately trying to return to East Lake Golf Club, double-bogeyed the sixth hole, a par 3, by dumping his tee shot in a pot bunker to the left of the green. He chunked it into the rough, then flopped it on the green well short of the hole, and two-putted for a double-bogey 5.
    That dropped him to 30th in the PGA Tour point standings, and when Kyle Stanley, in the group behind, birdied the par-5 fifth hole, Haas was shoved to 31st place. But Stanley shoved his tee shot on the sixth into the water, and the standing shifted again. They likely will much of the afternoon. Haas was still 30th in the points through 13 holes.
    The scoring average was 72.068 at 3:13 p.m. Stay with us!
    – Tim Cronin