AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Phil Mickelson, who turns 48 in June, is aware that his prospects are limited. And that makes playing poorly at the Masters after arriving with such optimism all the more difficult.
Mickelson's 79 on Friday matched his career-worst score at Augusta National and took him from contention to the cut line after the second round of the Masters.
"I don't know what's happened the last couple of days. It's a little disappointing," Mickelson said after finishing at 5-over-par 149 that left him tied for 46th -- 14 shots behind leader Patrick Reed. "I've been playing so well this year. To play like this ... it's disappointing. This is my favorite tournament of the year. A rough couple of days."
Mickelson, who won his 43rd PGA Tour title last month at the WGC-Mexico Championship and posted three top-six finishes in February, was in good shape through eight holes Friday, at 2 under par for the tournament and within a shot of the lead.
Then it all went wrong at the par-4 ninth when he hit his drive into the trees on the left. Mickelson saw an opening to punch the ball down in front of the green, but his shot banged off a tree and into a bush.
He elected to take an unplayable-lie penalty and played again from the same spot. After pitching his fifth shot onto the green, he two-putted for a triple-bogey 7.
"There was plenty of gap," Mickelson said. "I was trying to run a 2-iron down there to try and salvage par, get it up and down. I was even for the day, 2 under for the tournament. It wasn't a hard par if I just chased it down there by the green. But I pushed it, and it wound up in the bushes."
Mickelson rebounded to birdie the 10th, but he bogeyed the 11th, found Rae's Creek and double-bogeyed the 12th, failed to birdie either par-5 and added bogeys at the 16th and 18th holes for a back-nine 40.
Although he shot 70 in the first round, Mickelson said he was uncomfortable with an issue in his swing that he was unable to overcome in the second round.
"I thought we had kind of fixed it," he said. "Really good warm-up and was hitting it great, and then the first hole I blocked it again. I was a little worried the rest of the round, and that was kind of the case. Didn't quite have it again. The conditions were a little more severe, and so the misses were magnified."
The winner of five major championships, including three Masters, Mickelson last won this tournament in 2010. He has had two top-three finishes since but had high hopes of contending this week.
"There's a fine line between wanting it so bad and letting it sort of happen," Mickelson said. "As you get older, you feel a little more pressure each time because you don't feel as though you have an unlimited number of events.
"Given how well I was playing coming into this, I certainly put a lot of pressure on myself to perform this week and get it. Because I know the opportunities are lessening here. I thought this was a great year, a great opportunity."