Blast from past as Mickelson opens with 64
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Phil Mickelson has gone nine months since he finished among the top 20, and it looks as though that streak is about to end at the Wells Fargo Championship.
The 50-year-old Mickelson kept his focus Thursday at Quail Hollow and blistered the course for a 7-under 64 to build a two-shot lead after the opening round. All but one of his eight birdies was longer than about 5 feet.
Mickelson ran off five birdies in a sixhole stretch around the turn.
He closed with two birdies and a superb par save on the par-4 ninth for his best score since a 63 in the second round of the Travelers Championship last June.
Lefty missed the cut last week in the Valspar Championship and said he was concerned about losing concentration and dropping shots during stretches of a round. That wasn’t an issue at Quail Hollow, a course he loves for its mixture of birdie holes and tough par holes.
“The biggest thing for me was I was able to say in the present and focus on each shot,” Mickelson said. “My mind has been prone to wander.”
K.H. Lee had a 66 in the morning, while Innisbrook runner-up Keegan Bradley had a 66 in the afternoon.
The group at 67 included former U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland, Tommy Fleetwood and Keith Mitchell, who reached 6 under until a sloppy double bogey on the long par-3 sixth hole and closed with a bogey. Still, Mitchell was 15 shots better than his previous round, an 82 on Sunday at Innisbrook.
Mickelson attributed most of the fun to his grouping of everyman Joel Dahmen (68) and old-soul Lanto Griffin, who struggled to a 75 as he tries to secure a spot in the U.S. Open.
Dahmen had tweeted that a round with Mickelson was on his bucket list and that he looked forward to see how his game would stack up against the best on the PGA Tour Champions. Mickelson has won twice on the senior circuit since turning 50 last summer.
“He’s a great guy,” Dahmen said. “He’s so full of … information, would be a good way to put it. I poked him a little bit, and he played awesome. I was trying not to get my butt kicked too bad.”
Mostly, though, this was Phil looking like the old Phil.
His lone bogey came on No. 11, his second hole of the afternoon round. His longest birdie putt was 15 feet on the 341-yard 14th, reachable off the tee but
tough to get it close to the back right pin. Mickelson got up-and-down from a bunker on the par-5 15th hole. From there, he barely missed with his irons.
It started with an approach into 5 feet on No. 16. After a par save from right of the green on the par-3 17th, Mickelson hit into 3 feet on the 18th, 5 feet on the 507-yard first hole.
He finished out his round with a long two-putt birdie on the par-5 seventh, and a beautiful pitch to 5 feet with the pin on an upper shelf.
LPGA
PATTAYA, Thailand – Local stars Patty Tavatanakit and Atthaya Thitikul carded 8-under 64s to share a stroke lead after the first round of the LPGA Thailand on Thursday.
Tavatanakit, who became Thailand’s new leading female golfer following her breakthrough win at the ANA Inspiration
last month, shot nine birdies against a lone bogey on the sixth hole in drizzle conditions.
Despite no spectators because of the pandemic, Tavatanakit was playing under high home expectations. A Thai has never won this U.S. LPGA Tour event. She kept her cool and led alongside teenage prodigy Thitikul at Siam Country Club.
“I left myself in really good positions on the green,” Tavatanakit said. “I made some mistakes here and there, but I was able to recover and just walk away from the hole with a lot of pars when it wasn’t birdie.”
Coming off a tie for third in Singapore last weekend, Tavatanakit has replaced former world No. 1 Ariya Jutanugarn as Thailand’s highest-ranked woman at 12th.
“It’s always been my dream to just be in the mix of really good players. But I don’t want to compare myself to anyone,” she said. “I just want to stick to my own goals and don’t really care who’s ahead of me or if I’m behind anyone.”
The 18-year-old Thitikul highlighted her round with eagles on the 10th and 18th holes, five birdies, and a bogey on the 14th.
“I had an amazing round,” she said. Thitikul has met home expectations previously. She became the youngest known winner of a professional tournament when she was 14 in 2017 at the Thailand Championship, and became the youngest to win two Ladies European Tour events when she won the Thailand Championship again in 2019 at 16.
Champions Tour
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Darren Clarke took the lead Thursday in the Regions Tradition, opening with a 6-under 66 in the first of five PGA Tour Champions majors.
The 2011 British Open champion from Northern Ireland had a one-stroke lead over Stephen Ames and Jerry Kelly at Greystone Golf & Country Club.
“Majors are majors, it doesn’t make any difference which tour they’re on,” Clarke said. “You want to play well. You ask Tiger Woods, you ask Rory McIlroy, you ask Dustin (Johnson), you ask Mr. (Jack) Nicklaus, you ask anybody, majors are what they all want, and it’s the same out here.
“We all want them, too. There’s a little bit of added excitement, four-round tournament. I think it’s the first tournament I’ve walked since Pebble Beach last year, so my legs are a little bit sore.”
He won his lone senior titles in consecutive starts in early November in Florida and late January in Hawaii.
Clarke started on the 10th hole with back to back birdies and added three straight birdies before making the turn.
Euro Tour
TENERIFE, Spain – Francesco Laporta shot a 9-under 62 for the lowest round of his European Tour career and a oneshot lead after the opening round of the Canary Islands Championship on Thursday.
The Italian had eight birdies, an eagle and only one bogey in his round at Golf Costa Adeje course.
Spaniard Scott Fernandez was in second place and a group of three golfers was another shot back – Frenchman Joel Stalter and Spaniards Alfredo Garcia-Heredia and Adri Arnaus.