Sunday setup: A Cinderfella, Lefty and a local favorite
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Of course, people are going to dwell on a victory drought stretches back to the 1998 Buick Open and includes 344 tournament starts.
But as Billy Mayfair is quick to point out, he shot 65 to win the qualifier on Monday just to get into the Quail Hollow Championship that he leads going into Sunday's final round.
Not to mention, there was that Friday game a few weeks ago at Whisper Rock, the exclusive club in Scottsdale, Ariz., that's home to so many PGA TOUR pros, a place where Mayfair played to a plus-5 handicap until about six months ago while Phil Mickelson was a plus-3.
"And I beat my wife last Saturday, too," the affable Mayfair offered with a grin, "even though I had to give her a bunch of shots."
Don't let him fool you, though. Mayfair knows what a Cinderella story he could author on Sunday by holding off the likes of Mickelson, who just made the Masters his 38th career victory, and Davis Love III, who has 20 titles on his resume.
At the same time, the 43-year-old Mayfair is a five-time TOUR winner with 21 years of experience, every day of which he'll rely on Sunday as the pressure ratchets up on the back nine. He's been there, done that and he sees no reason he can't do it again.
"It's been a long time since I've won, (and) I would love to have the feeling again, there's no doubt," Mayfair acknowledged. "But no, I don't think you ever lose that feeling, even though it's been a long time."
Of course, for Mickelson, Mayfair's long-time friend, it's been just three weeks since that emotional Masters win. And now he finds himself tied for second with Love, two strokes back, despite battling food poisoning that saw him hooked to an IV rather than finishing up his pro-am round.
On Saturday, Mickelson battled his putter and his swing but managed his misses, which is Lefty's secret weapon when he's playing well. He'll be in the penultimate group on Sunday while Mayfair plays with Love, who was born in Charlotte, played at UNC and whose following here rivals that of the wildly popular lefthander.
"I didn't have it today," Mickelson said. "I didn't have great control over my ball-striking and missed a number of putts that I probably could have made. But I controlled the misses, I kept the round in check, and because of the difficult conditions was able to shoot a number that kept me in contention for Sunday, so I'm excited about my opportunities tomorrow.
"I'll be able to talk to (swing coach) Butch (Harmon) tonight, have a late tee time, so I'll have time to work on it in the morning and hopefully get it turned around and feel confident heading into the final round."
Love had the low round of the leaders as Quail Hollow, which was generous enough to relinquish a 66 to Rory McIlroy and 67s to Scott McCarron and Steve Marino before the clock struck noon, toughened up. He moved up 12 spots with his 68, and the two-time champ in nearby Greensboro now has a chance to add Charlotte to his North Carolina PGA TOUR bucket list.
Love was still in diapers when his family moved from the Queen City where his father was the head pro at Charlotte Country Club and his mother was the secretary to the pastor at the First Baptist Church. He's still got plenty of family and friends here, though -- tournament director Kim Hougham was generous and gave Love 20 tickets -- and the fans have embraced their native sone this week, as always.
"Ryuji Imada said yesterday, 'Will you tell everyone to be nice to us, too?" Love said, chuckling. "He goes, you've got so many people pulling for you. So that's always nice."
Love is more than a year removed from his last victory, which made the 1997 PGA champ a lifetime member of the TOUR. He'll be an assistant to Corey Pavin at the Ryder Cup but Love wants dearly to play on the team instead. A win Sunday would go a long way toward that goal, and he doesn't expect to have his close ties to the city add to the pressure.
"Winning -- period -- right now means a lot," the 46-year-old Love said. "Winning in Charlotte is not going to be that much more of a distraction or pressure to me. It would be like afterwards, I would go, oh man, that would ... be nice.
"When I first played in the tournament here in Charlotte or Greensboro I tried too hard to do well. I think I'm over that. I could just write you the laundry list of things that (sports psychologist Bob) Rotella is going to tell me not to think about. And there's a lot of them out there."
Mayfair knows the feeling. He also knows how good it felt to hear the cheers of the crowd on Saturday and the satisfaction of grinding out his 71 with the lead in his pocket all day. He's gained confidence with every day and can't wait to test himself in the final round.
"'When you make a good putt, you make a birdie, you say to yourself, dang, I did that, and I'm back to playing the way I want to play again," Mayfair said. "When you haven't won in a long time, you start doubting yourself a little bit and maybe don't have the confidence that you should have.
"Today was a big day for me. To go out there and have the lead and still have the lead going into the fourth round tomorrow will give me a lot of confidence and make me sleep a little bit better tonight and know that if I just go out there tomorrow and play well, I've got a great chance of winning."
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