Mickelson tames Woods

Phil Mickelson raced to a fast start and held off Tiger Woods, Arron Olberholser and Brett Wetterich by two strokes to win the Deutsche Bank Championship.

He shot a five-under-par 66 on Monday and finished the second event of the inaugural FedEx Cup playoff series tournament on a 16 under par 268 to claim his third victory of the year. Luke Donald was the top Briton in joint 60th place.

Facing Woods head-to-head for the first time in 18 months, Mickelson never looked back after birdies at four of the first seven holes. Woods was four-under and finished on 14-under for the tournament having made a late charge by posting birdies on the 14th and 16th but was unable to sink a key 10-foot birdie putt on the 17th while a 33-foot putt for eagle on the 18th fell short, effectively ending his chance. "I just didn't make enough putts to really push him," he said.

The victory put Mickelson on top of the FedEx Cup points standings, but he delivered another blow to the FedEx Cup series by saying he might skip this week's third leg in Chicago. "I want to have a balance in my life," he said. "It's not the four FedExCup tournaments – it's the PGA, Akron right before. Only four days off after the British Open before we had to travel and playing two weeks before that, so for the last three months we've had no more than two days off at a time."