Mickelson shakes off rust with 68 at La Quinta
LA QUINTA, Calif. — Phil Mickelson returned from a long layoff with a big mid-round run Thursday in the CareerBuilder Challenge.
Mickelson, 45, opened with a 4-under-par 68 at La Quinta Country Club in his first start since the Presidents Cup in October, playing a seven-hole stretch at 6 under.
“I’ve had a lot of time off,” Mickelson said. “It was fun to get back into the swing of it. We had a beautiful day here. Weather’s spectacular. Golf course was great. I had a good, solid round.”
He holed out for eagle on the par-4 eighth with a shot that spun back 15 feet, chipped in on the next hole for a front-nine 31, and added another birdie on 11. He three-putted for par on the par-5 13th and made two late bogeys to fall four strokes behind leaders Jason Dufner, Jerry Kelly, Jeff Overton and Anirban Lahiri.
The round was Mickelson’s first since he split with swing coach Butch Harmon to work with Andrew Getson. The 2002 and 2004 champion is winless since the 2013 British Open.
Adam Hadwin had the best round on the Stadium Course with a 66. In other golf news: • Joe Durant shot a 7-under 65 to take a one-stroke lead in the PGA Tour Champions’ season-opening Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Kaupulehu-Kona, Hawaii. Defending champion Miguel Angel Jimenez, Davis Love III and Tom Pernice Jr. were a stroke back in the event for major champions from the last five years, tournament winners in the last two seasons, and sponsor invitees.
• Rory McIlroy began 2016 with a masterful display of driving to set up a 6-under 66 at the Abu Dhabi Championship, upstaging top-ranked playing partner Jordan Spieth in the first round. McIlroy was one stroke behind early leader Henrik Stenson (65) after rolling in eight birdies in his first appearance after two months off, during which he underwent laser eye surgery. Spieth scrambled well to shoot a 68.
• Mark Steinbauer, former director of golf at The Club at Carlton Woods, was named 2015 Southern Texas PGA Golf Professional of the Year for a second time. Steinbauer was the captain of the victorious STPGA Texas Joe Black Cup team that beat the Northern Texas PGA.
Blackhawks’ win streak ends at 12
Nikita Kucherov snapped a second-period tie with his 20th goal, and Tampa Bay ended visiting Chicago’s franchise-record 12-game winning streak with a 2-1 victory over the defending Stanley Cup champion.
The win was the seventh in a row for the Lightning — one shy of a team record — and gave the defending Eastern Conference champs a split of the season series with the Blackhawks, who won last year’s Stanley Cup final against Tampa Bay in six games. In other news: • Daniel Sedin became Vancouver’s career leader in goals with 348, scoring twice in the third period of the Canucks’ 4-2 victory at Boston. Sedin scored two goals in Vancouver’s 3-2 overtime victory over Florida on Jan. 11 to tie Markus Naslund for the franchise lead but was scoreless in four consecutive games before Thursday.
Edmunds tops short program
Teenager Polina Edmunds has a large lead at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in St. Paul, Minn., after former winners Ashley Wagner and Gracie Gold made major mistakes in their short programs.
Edmunds, 17, a 2014 Olympian, skated cleanly to score 70.19 points as she seeks her first national title. Gold is second with 62.50 points after she did just one rotation on a planned triple lutz and nearly crashed into the wall on an attempted triple-triple combination, settling for a double toe loop on the second jump.
Tyler Pierce, also 17, is third with 62.45 points. Wagner, a three-time U.S. champion, is fourth with 62.41 after falling on her triple-triple combination.
Tarah Kayne and Danny O’Shea, who finished third last year to miss out on a trip to the world championships, lead the pairs competition with 69.61 points. Defending champions Alexa Scimeca and Christopher Knierim are second with 67.35 points.
George receives 9-year sentence
Former NBA player and University of Connecticut basketball star Tate George was sentenced in a New Jersey federal court to nine years in prison for running a real estate Ponzi scheme. A federal judge in Trenton also ordered George to pay $2.5 million in restitution and serve three years of supervised release. George was convicted more than two years ago on four wire fraud counts. His victims included current NBA player Charlie Villanueva, former player Brevin Knight and “The Apprentice” winner Randal Pinkett. They lost several hundred thousand dollars altogether, prosecutors said. ... American cyclist Tyler Farrar, bloodied and bruised, borrowed a bike and shoes from a fan to complete the third stage of the Tour Down Under, the first event of the 2016 WorldTour. Farrar was one of five riders involved in a high-speed crash as the peloton made a sharp turn toward the Corkscrew climb, about six miles from the finish of the 139-kilometer stage from Glenelg to Campbelltown on the outskirts of Adelaide, Australia. Farrar, who rides for South Africa-based Team Dimension Data, suffered bruises and abrasions and was left stranded without assistance from his team’s support car and the race’s neutral support vehicle, which had passed by. New Zealander Anthony Tooman, standing nearby, offered Farrar a wheel from his bike, but Farrar said a wheel wasn’t going to be enough. He said he would need the whole bike and Tooman’s shoes, which were compatible with the pedals. Tooman wasted no time handing them over so Farrar could finish the stage.