Mickelson fires 69 to hold off Els

By: JournalNow Staff | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 09, 2009

HSBC Champions: Thousands of fans caused a bottleneck at the entrance, all of them eager to see yesterday's showdown in Shanghai between Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods.

Woods turned out to be merely a spectator, too.
Mickelson built a six-shot lead over Woods on the front nine, then rallied to beat another familiar foe, Ernie Els, with two clutch putts for a one-shot victory in the final World Golf Championship of the year.

Mickelson closed with a 3-under 69 and won for the first time playing with Woods in the final group.
Even with Woods out of the picture — he shot 72 and wound up five shots behind — Mickelson provided his usual dose of entertainment.
Trailing by one shot, Mickelson whiffed on a risky flop shot below the 16th green, only to save par with perhaps his best putt of the year, an 18-foot slider that dropped on its final turn. He followed that with a 10-foot birdie on the 17th, which turned out to be the difference when Els hit into the water on the par-5 18th and made bogey.
"We all expected that Tiger and myself would be shooting in the mid-60s and pull away a little bit," Mickelson said. "And yet, our group was not making any birdies. It was the groups in front of us. And I was very fortunate to come out on top by a shot. But this feels terrific, because I had to fight very hard throughout the day. Nothing came easy."
That was particularly true for Woods.
He looked out of sorts from the start, missing birdie putts of 4 feet and 10 feet, then taking double bogey on the par-3 fourth when he hit into a canal left of the green where residents on the other side routinely dump their garbage.

Mizuno Classic:South Korea's Bo Bae Song won yesterday for her first LPGA Tour title, closing with a 4-under 68 for a three-stroke victory over top-ranked Lorena Ochoa, Brittany Lang and Hee Young Park in Shima, Japan.

"Honestly I couldn't sleep last night because I was so nervous," said Song, the Japan Women's Open winner last month at Abiko. "I went to bed at 11 last night, but woke up around 3. Usually that doesn't happen."
Song, 23, finished at 15-under 201 at Kintetsu Kashikojima and earned $210,000 in the event co-sanctioned by the Japan LPGA.