Misery for Phil Mickelson as he misses USPGA cut - with Ryder Cup place now out of his hands

For the first time in 25 years, Phil Mickelson has not qualified for the Ryder Cup by right. As hard as he tried when the storm-delayed second round of the USPGA was completed here Saturday morning, the veteran left-hander just could not pick up the birdies he required to make the cut.

So, as Mickelson is 10th in the standings with the only the top eight qualifying automatically and as this is the final event in the United States race for Paris, that is it – he cannot rise after his 71 for a four-over total and his proud record is thus over.

And it was a proud record because as Colin Montgomerie said in his Telegraph Sport column on Wednesday – “It is one of the most incredible achievements in golf”.

“Consider that Mickelson first played in the 1995 Ryder Cup,” Montgomerie added. “That is more than two decades of being up there, battling against the greatest collection of players from a single country in the world – and coming through each time.”

Not that Mickelson will miss Le Golf National. It is still long odds-on that Jim Furyk, the US captain, will select the 48-year-old as a wildcard, despite his form tailing off since winning the WGC in Mexico for his first victory in five years. Furyk has three weeks to name his first three picks and then another week to choose the last man for the team which he hopes will win on Europe soil for the first time since 1993.

Mickelson and Tiger Woods will almost certainly be in the first batch, but the fight for the other spots will be intriguing. One player who did his cause no good whatsoever here as play resumed was Bryson DeChambeau. The 24-year-old came into the season’s final major needing to win $33,000 (£25,800) more than Webb Simpson to move up from ninth to eighth.

But as Simpson coasted to four-under and into the top 20 heading into the final two rounds, De Chambeau – nicknamed “The Mad Scientist” because of his physics-based approach to the game – suffered a nightmare six holes, bogeying three of them. On the ninth, his final hole, he yanked a four-footer to miss by a shot. DeChambeau, too, cannot qualify and is in danger of falling down the standings with Kevin Kisner in second at the halfway point, one behind Gary Woodland.

Then there is Tony Finau, who is the only player to have finished in the top 10 of the first three majors on the campaign. The big-hitter made the cut on the number after a second-round 66. The 28-year-old at least gave himself a chance of hurtling up from 13th in the Ryder Cup standings.

But, more pertinently, he had played with Furyk who must have thought of the fourballs format when watching Finau reel off 10 birdies in his four-under second round to equal the USPGA record set by Gary Player in 1984.

Finau started with five straight birdies, before making a triple-bogey on the sixth. Finau bounced back with two more in a row and although Furyk kept his lips tight, his expression said it all.

“Jim didn’t say anything, he was just shaking his head. I think it was the craziest round he’s ever seen,” Finau said. “But the good news is 10 birdies in a major is pretty good.”

There are three more weeks in the European qualifying race and with Paul Casey – the golfer occupying the eighth and final automatic place in the standings – missing the cut and Thorbjorn Olesen and Ian Poulter, both only a handful of points behind in ninth and 10th, making it through to the final two rounds – on two-under and three-under respectively – much can change on Sunday.

However, the biggest concern for Thomas Bjorn, the Europe captain, is the form of Sergio Garcia. Last year’s Masters champion finished his round on Friday lunchtime but was forced to hang around to see if his one-over total would be good enough. It proved to be one short and this makes it eight missed cuts in his last 10 PGA Tour starts and five missed cuts in the last five majors.

Garcia has entered the Wyndham Championship, which begins in North Carolina on Thursday and will be hoping to be inspired by his win at that event in 2012 which guaranteed him a berth in the Ryder Cup at Medinah.

But unless the Spaniard performs at the Wyndham he is in danger of not even qualifying for the FedEx Cup, the four-event play-off series which first features the top 125 on the money list. Garcia’s form has been so woeful that he is down in 131st.

If he does fall short and misses out on the Northern Trust Open in New Jersey – which would be his last counting event – it would be intriguing to see if he would return to the European Tour to play in either the KLM Open or the Made in Denmark tournament, the final qualifying tournament, if only to highlight to Bjorn how much he wants to make a ninth appearance for Europe.

Certainly, he is not guaranteed a pick. Bjorn hinted as much here. “Sergio is Sergio, he has so many qualities,” Bjorn said. “He won’t be happy with where he’s been with his game over the last few months, so I’m sure he would like to go out and put in a few good performances… I would like to see something from him.”

Tiger Woods was on four-under – the same mark as Justin Rose – after playing the remaining 10 holes of his second round in one-under, while Rory McIlroy, who played with Woods, was on three-under as he picked up three birdies in the morning, including an audacious chip in on the 14th.

Rickie Fowler moved up to eight-under after a 67 to stand in third alongside Brooks Koepka, while Ireland’s Shane Lowry completed a fine 64 to join world No 1 Dustin Johnson in a group on seven-under.