TUCSON, Arizona. – Phil Mickelson got into the mud after his 15th Tucson National hole came out into a pond. He adjusted his feet to keep his balance and gave an iron punch to the street track, getting applause from his teammate Fred Couples.
Another iron of 9 to the pair of 5 to 4 feet and, after cleaning his shoes, an improbable little bird.
A bit of Mickelson magic has Lefty looking to make history.
Mickelson’s mud birdie featured a 70-year-old in the Cologuard Classic on Friday, vying for a third straight win to open his PGA Tour Champions race.
“It was so heated. I was going to go in and play in it, whatever it was: how far this mud went up, it didn’t matter,” Mickelson said. “It wasn’t a hard shot. The ball was sitting, so I was going to get into it.”
Mickelson was 4 shots behind Mike Weir, who had a bogey-free 66 in windy conditions at Tucson National. Scott Verplank came out of a green zone bunker for birdie in the ninth par-4 to close out a 65.
Mickelson is bidding to become the first player to win his first three starts on a PGA Tour-sanctioned tour.
Lefty had a relatively stress-free new front, shooting 3 on one of the fields where he became the last fan to win the PGA Tour 30 years earlier. He hit his second shot in the eighth par-5 hole on the side of shirt no. 3 adjacent, through which Jeff Sluman passed after leaving.
“I came here to say hello,” Mickelson said, making Sluman laugh.
Faced with a difficult lie down on the latent grass of Bermuda, Mickelson hit the ball about 6 feet and made the putt for birdie.
The five-time major champion began to have problems in the final nine, starting with a three-putt bogey in the eleventh par-4. Mickelson won a double error after going out of bounds on par-4 13 and appeared to be in trouble when his shot at number 15 rolled into a pond in the corner of the dogleg.
The pond was 237 yards from the tee, so Mickelson thought there was no way to hit a 5-foot iron to the wind. Once the ball was scattered in the mud, he entered it right after.
“I’ll have to get Callaway to send me another pair of these shoes because they were new, but they’re no longer good,” he said.
Mickelson followed him with another bird in the 17th par-5, cutting a 3 iron in the front bunker and almost drilling it. He closed with a par to the difficult par-4 18 to shoot par 37 in the new back.
Mickelson won the Ozarks National in Missouri last August in his first outing after turning 50 and followed with a win at the Virginia Country Club in October. Although he focused primarily on playing on the PGA Tour, he opted to return to Tucson, where he won three times: the first at Tucson National and TPC Starr Pass as a 20-year amateur at Arizona State.
“I have a little work to do to bring these short irons closer together,” Mickelson said. “If I can do that, I can do a lot of birdies here, but this wasn’t the day. Today I didn’t score very well. I have to look for it because these guys do a lot of birdies and I have to try to get past them.”
Weir opened with two birdies and followed with seven straight pars. The 2003 Masters champion had five birds in a seven-hole stretch to shoot 5 to 32 in the back again.
“Overall, it was solid all the way,” he said. “I did a couple of nice putts. When you shoot 7 below, they’re a few close, I made some nice ones, I played well too.”
Verplank had a stretch of six birdies in seven holes after starting in the back nine and followed eight consecutive pars with his hole bunker shot.
“I hadn’t hit a lot of bunker shots, but let’s see what happens and I got it right very well,” Verplank said. “But they’re lucky when they come in, so I’ll take it.”
Steve Stricker, who also plays the PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions, was a group tied for sixth place at 69. He has not played any PGA Tour Champions events since September and has tied for fourth place at the PGA Tour Phoenix Open this September. month. He won the 2018 tournament for the first of his five senior titles.