LEFTY PERFECT VS. SENIORS
Phil Mickelson likes to play aggressively and found the PGA Tour Champions’ stop at The Country Club of Virginia in Richmond the perfect place to begin his preparations for the Masters.
Bombing drives like he will have to do against the younger set on the PGA Tour, Mickelson shot a 7-under 65 and became the third player — and second this year — to win his first two starts on the tour for players 50 and older. He slammed the door on Mike Weir with a back-nine surge Sunday in the Dominion Energy Charity Classic.
“It’s fun for me to come out here and play well, and this is a good start for me as I try to build a little bit of momentum heading to Augusta in about a month,” the San Diegan said.
He finished at 17-under 199, one off the event record set by Miguel Angel Jimenez last year.
“I put a new driver into play this week, trying to get a little more pop, a little more carry. It was a little wayward at times, but it was also effective in allowing me to play this course the way I wanted to, which was aggressively,” Mickelson said.
Mickelson beat fellow lefthander and second-round leader Weir by three strokes. The fellow rookie closed with a 71 and said he would have contended had he putted better.
“I haven’t been in this position in a while, but I felt very confident,” the Canadian said. “I hit one poor tee shot on No. 7. Outside of that, I played really well and just didn’t get anything really out of it.”
The winner in late August at Ozarks National in Missouri in his first start on the tour, Mick
elson joined Bruce Fleischer and Jim Furyk as the only players to win in their first two senior events. Fleischer accomplished the feat in 1999 and Furyk did it this year with victories at The Ally Challenge and Pure Insurance Championship.
Mickelson said earlier in the week he came to Virginia to
work on accurate driving and competitive fitness, and was hoping to still be in contention for the closing holes.
“I felt like the last six holes I had an opportunity with the two short par 4s and two par 5s to make something happen,” he said, noting the advantage of his length. “I was able to have two-putt birdies on three of those holes and that was very helpful.”
Elsewhere
In his 10th season, in his 233rd tournament, Jason Kokrak can finally call himself a PGA Tour winner.
Kokrak earned every bit of it in the CJ Cup at Shadow Creek in North Lav Vegas. He matched the best round of the tournament with an 8-under 64 to overcome a three-shot deficit at the start and win a duel on the back nine with San Diego’s Xander Schauffele.
Kokrak began to pull away with four straight birdies on the front nine, and birdie putts from 20 feet and 18 feet to start the back nine stretched his lead to two shots.
Schauffele answered with three straight birdies, the last one a 45-footer by using his putter from the thick collar of the 13th green to catch him. Then, it was a matter of who blinked first.
That turned out to be Schauffele on the par-5 16th, when he only managed to advance his shot from deep rough left of the fairway some 85 yards into more rough. Swinging with all his might, his third shot peeled off to the right into more rough well below the green, and he made his only bogey in his round of 66.
Kokrak also was in the left rough, hacked out to the right rough and put his third shot in the bunker. But he splashed it out to just inside 4 feet and made par for a one-shot lead, and Schauffele couldn’t catch up.
Spain’s Adrian Otaegui won the Scottish Championship in Fife for his first stroke-play title on the European Tour, closing with a 9-under 63 for a four-stroke victory.