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RIDGEDALE, Mo. – The only bad shot Phil Mickelson hit on his PGA Tour Champions debut was a rebellious iron off the tee.
He always turned it into a birdie.
It was one of five straight games in the last nine games on Monday for the five-time major champion, who decided to make his debut in the over-50s this week after missing the cup at the Northern Trust and being knocked out of the playoffs of the PGA Tour FedEx Cup.
Mickelson finished with 11 birdies and shot a 10 under 61 to take a one-shot lead over David McKenzie in the Charles Schwab Series at the Ozarks National.
“It’s a lot of fun. It’s a fun environment. And it’s fun to see a lot of guys that I grew up watching, and I played with them for a number of years, and I Played a bunch of Ryder Cups and Presidents Cups with a lot of the guys here, ”Mickelson said.“ I was a little nervous too, because I wanted to play well. I was playing really well. “
KJ Choi, making his second start on the PGA Tour Champions, was joined in a 7-under group by Rocco Mediate, Rod Pampling and Tim Petrovic. Ernie Els, Bernhard Langer, and Vijay Singh were among those other retorts.
“We still have a lot of golf left,” said Mickelson, who has touched all greens except one in settlement. “A lot of players have gone really low. The quality of golf here is really impressive.”
Mickelson, who turned 50 in June, was optimistic his game was getting in shape for the US Open, the only major championship he didn’t win. But that missed cut on the PGA Tour left him with the option of not playing for the next two weeks before the Safeway Open, which would be his final tune-up for Winged Foot.
So, the Hall of Famer jumped a jet to Southwest Missouri and the Ozarks National. The course is the new gem of Big Cedar Lodge, the resort created by Mickelson’s good friend and Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris. With wide fairways and large greens, it hardly presents the challenge of Winged Foot. But it gave Mickelson a chance to polish his game.
Accompanied by his friends Steve Stricker and Retief Goosen, he was among the last to leave on Monday. But he wasted no time in starting to chase McKenzie, who had posted a career round earlier in the day. Mickelson birdieed in the first, added four more over the next six holes, and had another birdie in the 11th par 4 to make up for his lone bogey.
Then his putter caught fire on the pristine and tumbled greens.
Mickelson rolled in a short bird putt at No 13, then another at 14, before his tee iron found the fairway bunker at the 15th par 4. With the ball under his feet, Mickelson struck an approach. solid 40 feet left of the hole, then ran it for a third consecutive birdie. He added two more birdies before missing a 15-footer on the last to shoot 29 on the last nine.
The record for birdies in a round of the PGA Tour Champions is 12.
“I was just trying to find a way to play smart on this golf course,” said Mickelson, who only managed 11 birdies once on a PGA Tour – at the Phoenix Open. 2013, when he fell on the lips. out of shot 59. “There’s plenty of room if you find the right club.”
McKenzie also found the right club all day. The Australian birdied back-to-back to finish the top nine, then landed three in a row on the back to shoot 62.
“I did a lot of putts today which made it a lot easier,” he said, “but it looks a bit like Australia. I think it’s Bill Coore, Ben Crenshaw who designed it, so I just love the it’s a really comfortable golf course. “
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