NORTON, Mass. -- Phil Mickelson rarely feels this much urgency when the majors are over.Not because of the Ryder Cup.Not even because of the $10 million bonus for winning the FedEx Cup.We can all throw out stats that are self-promoting, Mickelson said Thursday at the Deutsche Bank Championship. But this is the first time Ive ever led the tour in scoring. Thats a really good sign for me because the only statistic that matters is what you shoot. The fact Ive led the tour in scoring but dont have a win would really validate ... all the things Ive had going this year.Mickelson still hasnt won in three years dating to the British Open at Muirfield.It just doesnt feel like it to him.He qualified for his 11th consecutive Ryder Cup team, perhaps the greatest testament to his high level of play over two decades. Mickelson played in his first Ryder Cup when Tiger Woods was in college and Jordan Spieth was in diapers.Lefty is No. 10 in the FedEx Cup going into the second playoff event, making him virtually a lock to be in the Tour Championship.But what really gets his attention is that scoring average of 69.21, a slight lead over world No. 1 Jason Day, with U.S. Open champion Dustin Johnson not too far behind. Three tournaments are left before the Vardon Trophy is awarded for the lowest adjusted average.Thats an award Mickelson has never won.I would have remembered that, he said with a grin.Maybe because Mickelson, already in the Hall of Fame, has never won any award. Its one of the most peculiar footnotes in what otherwise is a sterling list of accomplishments.He was poised to win the PGA Tour money title and PGA Tour player of the year in 1996 until Tom Lehman won the season-ending Tour Championship at Southern Hills and beat Mickelson out in both. Woods turned pro the next year and won every award just about every year. And whenever Woods was going through a swing change, someone else was having a career season -- David Duval in 1998, Vijay Singh in 2004.Luke Donald and Lee Westwood have reached No. 1 in the world.Phil Mickelson holds the Official World Golf Ranking record for being No. 2 the most weeks (the equivalent of more than five years).He was on the front of the 18th green in two at Pebble Beach, needing to get up-and-down to force a playoff with Vaughn Taylor, the No. 447 player in the world. Mickelson, a five-time winner at Pebble Beach, missed a 5-foot putt and lost by one.He was runner-up in at the St. Jude Classic, and the most cruel runner-up finish was a month later at Royal Troon, where Mickelson had a putt for 62 spin out of the cup in the opening round, and he wound up on the short end of a magnificent duel with Henrik Stenson.Ive had a really good year for me, without a win, he said.No doubt, its more difficult now. Mickelson believes if he had played this way a generation ago, he probably would have had at least two wins. The fields are stronger than ever, and deeper. He doesnt have to be perfect, but he has to be better. Someone is always waiting to pounce on the slightest mistake.Theres a lot of players out here that work on their weaknesses and make them strengths, Mickelson said. But when Tiger would play at his best, it was almost impossible to beat him. Here, we have a number of players who when they play their best, its tough. But theyre beatable.Mickelson credits his switch to Andrew Getson, the Phoenix-area golf instructor, for helping with his improvements. He is driving the ball better, keeping it in play more often. His irons are better and hes had what he considers a great year with the putter.Ive had more bogey-free rounds that Ive had in a long time, Mickelson said. I had two of them at the British Open, and thats unheard for me. I think I had one ever, and now two in a four-day stretch.But still no trophy, and that still drives him.He has won the Deutsche Bank Championship. He has won the Tour Championship. He would take either one. He has never won the FedEx Cup, which would require the kind of timing that never seems to go his way.As for the Vardon Trophy? That would be a great consolation prize if he doesnt win. Chuck Bednarik Eagles Jersey . The third-ranked Ivanovic, who won the event in 2008 and 10, served five aces and broke Wickmayer, also a former winner in 2009, five times. "The result looked easier than it really was," Ivanovic said. Ron Jaworski Eagles Jersey .com) - The Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks both take aim at their first wins of the season on Saturday, as the Canucks open their home slate at Rogers Arena. http://www.theeaglesshoponline.com/Youth-jj-arcegawhiteside-eagles-jersey/ . Louis Blues teammates who would also be participating in the Olympics, Alex Pietrangelo felt right at home, no different in some ways to the travel experience of any old road trip – save for the length of the journey, that is. Reggie White Eagles Jersey . -- The Bishops Gaiters are showing they belong among the countrys top varsity football teams. Randall Cunningham Jersey . -- Josh Sterk scored once and set up two more as the Oshawa Generals edged the visiting Belleville Bulls 3-2 on Friday in Ontario Hockey League action. On Friday evening, Mohammed Shami took his first Test wicket in a year, six months, and 13 days. If any wicket is worth that long a wait, one necessitated by injury, surgery, and 40 days on crutches, this was probably it.The seam was bolt upright as the ball left Shamis hand, with no hint of wobble, and the impact of seam on turf caused the ball to move away from Rajendra Chandrika. It pitched just short of a good length, not too far from off stump, climbed a few inches more than Chandrika possibly expected, and drew an instinctive jab. Outside edge taken, chance accepted, and West Indies, replying to Indias 566 for 8 declared, were 29 for 1.It was a beautiful delivery, from a bowler fully capable of bowling them, but perhaps few had really expected him to produce that particular kind of delivery.Before this Test, 48.94% of Shamis Test wickets were either bowled or leg before, and only 31.91% caught behind or in the slip cordon. Those numbers reflected the skills he was primarily known for: pace, a fullish, attacking length, and an ability to reverse the ball. He possessed a sharp bouncer too, but did not necessarily generate steep bounce from a good length or just short of it.He often got wickets for the opposite reason, with balls that skidded on, losing very little pace off the pitch, reaching the batsman quicker than expected, perhaps even a shade lower than expected, and punishing them for camping in the crease.Marlon Samuels knew all about this. Shami, on Test debut, had dismissed him twice with deliveries skidding through from that perfect length, the shortest possible length he could land on while still hitting the stumps. Samuels was caught on the crease both times, bowled for 65 in the first innings and lbw for 4 in the second.On Saturday, two-and-a-half years later, Samuels faced Shami again. He seemed to be reminding himself of those dismissals, and seemed to be a man fighting his muscle memory, a man of sluggish footwork telling himself to press forward. The result of that internal struggle was a sort of crouching shuffle across the crease, and Shami wrong-footed him twice with bouncers. Samuels got under both of them, hunching awkwardly low.Shamis 16th ball to Samuels landed on the fullish side of a good length, in the corridor. Samuels shuffled across once more, leaning forward, and aimed for a push into the covers. All he managed was a thin edge. It settled snugly in Wriddhiman Sahas gloves, and Shami had become the joint-quickest Indian fast bowler to 50 Test wickets.Once again there was movement, and once again a bit of extra bounce. The ball had brushed the edge of Samuels bat close to its shoulder. In between the Chandrika and Samuels dismissals, Shami had dismissed Darren Bravo with a not dissimilar delivery, though shorter. Three balls after sending back Samuels, he got Jermaine Blackwood to fend another awkwardly lifting ball to gully.Four wickets, all of them the result of extra bounce. This was new, and unexpected. It caused you to watch every step of his action just that little closer. Once you did that, there was one obvious change from the Shami of old. In his first couple of years of international cricket, Shami had an idiosyncratiic run to the crease, a gallop of unusually long strides.dddddddddddd A number of experts had suggested this could cause a loss of stability when he reached the crease, and had ascribed this as a reason for his tendency to bowl loose balls. Around the time of the 2015 World Cup, Shami had said he was making an effort to shorten his running strides, and had credited Shoaib Akhtar with giving him the suggestion.Now, making his Test comeback at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Shami was sprinting in with noticeably shorter strides. The question still remained: did this have any connection with the bounce he was generating?Pondering it, Ian Bishop, the former West Indies fast bowler, suggested the bounce might have had less to do with shorter running strides than with a possible knock-on effect: a shorter delivery stride. This, he said, would give the bowler a higher point of release, and, as a consequence, the possibility of extra bounce. He took the example of Shannon Gabriel, who had troubled India with steep lift during their first innings.Before he suffered the ankle injury that cut short his 2015-16 Australia tour, Gabriels delivery stride, Bishop said, had grown progressively longer without him quite realising it, causing him to lose height at the crease.In the months following his recovery, Gabriel had worked hard to correct this. It wasnt easy to tell if Shami had also, by design or as a byproduct of his reduced running stride, shortened his delivery stride, but Bishop felt he was achieving good height at release. What also pleased him was Shamis alignment at the crease, his feet lined up to point him precisely where he wanted to bowl.It told in his line. On a pitch where bounce often seemed to be the fast bowlers only friend, Ishant Sharma may have been expected to provide the main threat, but while he did achieve steep lift, his line wasnt as close to off stump as Shamis. He did not make the batsmen play as often, and did not, as a result, force as many errors.As the rest of West Indies top order crumbled around him, Kraigg Brathwaite waged lonely resistance, his method simple and effective. Blessed with excellent judgment of line, he ignored as many deliveries as he could outside off stump, and waited patiently for straighter balls he could work into the leg side. Forty-eight of his 74 runs came in that direction. The cover drive barely made an appearance. Most of his off-side runs came square or behind square, when the bowlers dropped short.In all, Brathwaite left 53 balls. But he didnt leave with equal ease against all of Indias bowlers. He left 31 of the 67 balls he faced from Ishant, 13 out of 45 from Umesh Yadav, and only 6 out of 31 from Shami. He passed Shamis fourth-stump examination, but four of his team-mates didnt.This, in short, was high-class Test bowling: pace, movement, and that new-found bounce, all allied to an excellent length and a line that forced the batsmen to play, or think about playing. A better batting side may have made fewer mistakes, but Shami was still asking the right questions, over and over. ' ' '