4:28 p.m.: Tiger striped an iron at the 11th, but his approach shot left quite a bit to be desired and he settled for par to remain at eight under. Meanwhile, up ahead at 12, we've got major drama, as Jordan Spieth had to hit a provisional off the tee but wound up finding his first ball in the trees. From there, he attempted to hit a heroic punch out that clipped a tree and went out of bounds, forcing him to hit another one from the same spot. He punched out and now has to somehow get up and down to "save" double. Going to be tough to come back from this one, even for a guy known for bouncing back.<doc-sep>ST. LOUIS — When Phil Mickelson missed the cut in the PGA Championship, failing to play the weekend at Bellerive Country Club, it guaranteed he will not qualify for the Ryder Cup on points. That ends a streak of 11 consecutive U.S. Ryder Cup teams for which he qualified via the points system. Mickelson shot 71 in the second round, which was completed Saturday morning, and finished 4-over, missing the cut by four strokes. He inched closer to the cut with an early birdie on the back nine to get to 2-over, but never made another birdie and made a double-bogey at the 16th hole to effectively end his week. It was the second consecutive year Mickelson has missed the cut at the PGA Championship. The 2005 winner of the PGA at Baltusrol had made 21 consecutive cuts prior to that going back to 1995. The top eight players in the standings following the conclusion of the PGA on Sunday automatically qualify for the Ryder Cup team. U.S. captain Jim Furyk will then make two captains picks on Sept. 4 and another two on Sept. 10. It would be an upset if Mickelson, who essentially serves as an assistant captain, is not one of Furyk’s four picks. The same goes for Tiger Woods should he not move into the top-eight points list by Sunday. Woods already has been named an assistant captain. The 48-year-old Mickelson, who won the WGC-Mexico in the spring, played on his first U.S. Ryder Cup team in 1995 and has made every team since, including two years ago at Hazeltine, where the Americans won for just the third time in his 11 appearances. Mickelson entered the week 10th in the standings and needed roughly a top-20 finish to give himself a chance. But a first-round 73 had him scrambling to make the cut. In recent years, he has been a catalyst for the changes made in the makeup of the teams and, along with Woods, part of the Ryder Cup committee that also includes Furyk and three PGA of America officials. Mickelson, ranked 21st in the world, also been on every U.S. Presidents Cup team dating to 1994. In other Ryder Cup implications this week, several players high on the points list failed to make the PGA cut, including Patrick Reed (No. 4), Bubba Watson (No. 5), Bryson DeChambeau (No. 9) and Matt Kuchar (No. 11). One U.S. player in contention for a Ryder Cup berth who showed some spark was Tony Finau, who rallied from an opening-round 74 to make the cut with a wild second-round 66 that got him to even par, making the cut on the number. Finau, who is No. 13 on the points list and played the first two rounds with Furyk (who also made the cut at even par), carded 10 birdies in his second round, including birdies on his first five holes. “I’m human,’’ Finau said. “I came back out the second round and just played golf. The outcome’s going to be the outcome. Whatever happens this week, happens. It was still an emotional roller coaster in the second round. A lot happened, but to post 10 birdies in a major championship is pretty special. “Gary Player [whose birdie record Finau tied] is a guy that I admired, looked up to, I got to know him a little bit doing his charity event, and to be mentioned in the same breath as him as far as major championships is pretty cool for me at this point in my career.’’ Asked what Furyk’s reaction to all the birdies was, Finau said, “He didn’t say anything, but he was just shaking his head. For sure it was the craziest round I think he’s ever seen. So the good news is 10 birdies in a major is pretty good.’’ Finau, who double bogeyed No. 6 after his five birdies to start, did not have a par in the second round until the 10th hole. One characteristic Furyk surely took note of was the fact that Finau didn’t let his 4-over opening round get him down. “I feel like I’m pretty good about bouncing back,’’ Finau said. “My attitude allows me to do that — never too high, never too low. “It was kind of a shocker with how good everything was going for the first five holes. It was like I almost felt like I couldn’t do anything wrong. So maybe it kind of woke me up. But I was happy to bounce back with a couple of those birdies and again just post a solid round in my second round.’’ Englishman Matt Wallace had a hole-in-one on the 232-yard 16th hole in the third round Saturday with a 5-iron, going from 3-under to 5-under. It was the 26th ace since 1993 in PGA Championship play. “Best shot of my life probably,” Wallace said. “I flushed it right into my zone, and we can’t see where it lands into the shade, but when it landed, the crowd started cheering, and then it rolled in and they went mental, and it kind of reverberated back to the tee and then I just went crazy. So, yeah, special day for me today.” Wallace, who’s playing in America as a pro for only the third time, was blown away by his day and told playing partner Jordan Spieth: “You know, mate, this is a real privilege for me to be playing with you because 18 months ago, I was on a mini-tour and I worked really hard to where I got to now and it’s a privilege to play with you.” Instead of keeping the ball for himself, Wallace tossed it into the gallery. “People will be like, ‘Oh, that’s a stupid move,’ but I threw it in and then I met the guy after that hole and I signed it for him, and he said, ‘Are you sure you don’t want it back?’ And I said, ‘You keep that, mate. I keep the balls that I win with, and they’re all on the mantelpiece, so that one will just live in my memory for being pretty cool out there.’ ” The only one of the 20 club professionals who qualified for the PGA to make the cut was Ben Kern, who made it on the number at even-par. Kern, only the third club pro to make the cut since 2011, shot a 3-under 67 in the third round. Furyk, who was given a special exemption to get into the field, made the cut and shot 71 in the third round. Rickie Fowler is in contention yet again to win his first major championship. Fowler, who has eight top-five finishes in the 35 majors in which he has played, enters Sunday two shots out of the lead. “This golf course really suits me,” Fowler said. “I feel like I’m in a good spot with the game. So the biggest thing is not getting ahead of yourself, sticking to the game plan, not trying to be perfect, not trying to do anything extra special, staying within myself and just taking care of the shots that I can hit and what I can control.”<doc-sep>
The suspension of play on Friday at the 100th PGA Championship put Phil Mickelson and dozens of other golfers in a unique situation on Saturday morning. With a cut line at even par and nine or more holes left to play for the Friday afternoon groups, players spent the first hours of the day fighting for an opportunity to be included in the Saturday afternoon and Sunday action. Rory McIlroy started the day right on the cut line, but things turned with a couple of birdies (including one awesome hole-out) and he quickly moved into a comfortable position to continue his week at Bellerive. Tony Finau, after his seven-birdie, no-par 32 on the front nine on Friday, played the back nine on Saturday at one under to fight all the way back from 4-over to even par and make the cut on the number. Others, like Mickelson, were not so fortunate with the Saturday start. Here's a breakdown of the some of the notable players to miss the cut at the 2018 PGA Championship: Sergio Garcia (+1): This is now five straight missed cuts in major championships for the 2017 Masters winner. Garcia's 70-71 is nothing to be overly concerned about, just disappointing considering he was 1-under with six holes left to play in his second round on Friday. Bryson DeChambeau (+1): This is a particularly frustrating missed cut for DeChambeau as he fights for a spot on the Ryder Cup team. After being comfortably clear of the cut line at 2-under with just six holes to play on Saturday morning, DeChambeau bogeyed two in a row, settled for a par on the par-5 8th and then missed a par putt on the 9th (his 18th hole of the second round) that would have locked him in for the rest of the weekend. Patrick Reed (+3): Stellar play at each of the first three majors of the 2018 season, starting with his Masters win, did not continue at the PGA Championship. Reed is well-positioned to make a run at the FedEx Cup and make a case as the Player of the Year, and let's be honest: now that the major season is done we're counting down the days to Reed's arrival in France for the Ryder Cup. Phil Mickelson (+4): A few strokes better and 2018 could have been the first year that Mickelson has made the cut in all four major championships since 2015. It's been a good season as a whole for Phil, snapping a winless streak that dated back to 2013 at WGC-Mexico and playing well enough to be in the top 10 of the Ryder Cup standings. As part of the wave of golfers that had to battle a Saturday restart, Mickelson knew he needed to be aggressive across his final nine holes. He got a birdie at 11 but then his efforts were derailed by a double bogey at 16. Jason Dufner (+4): Since winning the PGA Championship in 2013, Dufner hasn't finished in the top 50 at this tournament. He was T5 in 2010, runner-up in 2011 and then a winner two years later. Dufner's 2017 win at the Memorial and early showing at Shinnecock suggest his game's in good shape right now, it just didn't all come together this week at Bellerive. Bubba Watson (+8): No one could have imagined a 78 was in Bubba's future when he walked off the course on Thursday at even par for the championship. Two double-bogeys, five bogeys and just one birdie have the two-time Masters champion headed home early after entering the week as a popular pick for contention. Wins earlier this season bolstered a No. 5 ranking in the Ryder Cup standings coming into this final week of competition for the eight automatic qualifying spots, so this one round shouldn't do too much big picture damage for Watson.