With 70, Mickelson in comfort zone

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Trying to defend his title at The Players Championship, Phil Mickelson sprinkled enough positives into his round of 70 yesterday to feel good about his chances. In fact, when it was suggested he sat four off the lead on a day when 34 players broke par and eight broke 70, the lefthander shrugged.

"This is a course where you really want to be patient and not try to force birdies," said Mickelson. "You want to take advantage of the birdie holes and the par 5s, especially. But I think if you make a lot of pars out here, you're not going to be losing much ground. A birdie here and there will help make up that ground."

Mickelson birdied the par-3 17th, his eighth hole, to go 2 under, but followed with bogeys at the par-4 18th and par-4 first. But what encouraged the lefthander was the way he rebounded for a birdie at the par-5 second.

"I certainly let some shots slide," he said. "I could have let it get to me and affect the rest of the round but, fortunately, I didn't."

Mickelson shot first-round 70s in three consecutive Players Championships before opening with a 67 en route to last year's win. He is 15 under for his last nine rounds at TPC Sawgrass and while it doesn't match the success he has become accustomed to at Augusta National, Mickelson insists he's comfortable here.

"I have a little bit more confidence playing the golf course [now]," he said, and he wasn't getting carried away with talk about the sub-70 scores.

"I think that anything under 70 is a very good score. There were a decent amount of rounds under par. I don't think I was overly surprised. To go low out here is very difficult."

Familiarity, contempt

Vijay Singh posted a pair of double bogeys coming home, including at the 18th, to shoot 75 and fall nine shots off the lead. Consider him a long shot to post a victory in a championship he has never won, although he's virtually a fixture at this course when he's not traveling the PGA Tour circuit . . . His woes paled in comparison to those of Vaughn Taylor (78), Charles Howell (79), and Lucas Glover (80), however . . . When the day was done, 20 balls found the water at the island-green 17th, though it only played as the seventh-hardest hole. That's because the morning wave played it under par, given a gentler wind and a softer green. With winds kicking up in the afternoon, it played a bit tougher as 10 double bogeys and three triples were made, as opposed to two and none in the morning, respectively. All in all, it played to a field average of 3.170 . . . The par-4 14th (4.454 field average) was the toughest hole, and the par-5 16th yielded a field average of 4.596 to rank easiest . . . Rich Beem holed out from 132 yards to record the only eagle at the par-4 seventh, helping get him home in 72. There were four eagles on the day - one at the par-5 ninth (D.J. Trahan) and two at the 16th (Nicholas Thompson and Bernhard Langer).

Result-oriented

Having missed the cut in six of his 10 tournaments, Brett Quigley has not hit the panic button. "It's been frustrating as heck for me," said the Rhode Islander after he birdied his 18th hole, the par-5 ninth, to shoot 2-under 70 and settle in four shots off the lead. "I've been doing the same stuff today that I've been doing every other week. Today was just a little better result." Quigley has missed the cut in three of his five starts at The Players . . . When he made double bogey at his sixth hole, the par-4 15th, to go 6 over, Englishman Brian Davis slammed his driver into the pine straw. Given that he was off in the third pairing off the back and it was still early, the thud shook the ground loud enough to make a few volunteers jump. It did little to bring his game alive, because Davis shot 77 . . . Playing in his 25th Players Championship, Fred Couples, 48, shot 2-under 70 to get into a tie for ninth. "I don't feel as good as I did earlier in the year," said the two-time winner here, "but I feel better than I have in a long time. It's coming to an end, though. Another Memorial [Tournament, at the end of May] and then I'll be in the pits."

Immelman withdraws

The tournament lost the only major championship winner of 2008 when Trevor Immelman withdrew. A month removed from his Masters triumph, Immelman cited an undisclosed illness. The 28-year-old South African was replaced by Dustin Johnson, who was 2 under through five holes before settling in at 73. "I prepared all week like I was going to play," said Johnson, who was on site by 6:15 a.m. "I was already prepared to play." . . . Other withdrawals included Jason Gore, who had a quadruple-bogey 9 at the second hole, then made double at the par-4 fourth before withdrawing with an injury; Hunter Mahan cited an illness and withdrew after making two pars; and Cameron Beckman was a whopping 10 over through 12 holes when he decided that his back pain was too much.