Fast start but simply couldn’t sustain.
Sound familiar?
Sounds a bit like Phil Mickelson?
That sums up Mickelson’s first day at the CareerBuilder Challenge on Thursday.
Lefty was playing the easiest of the three courses — LaQuinta. He made it look easy for his first nine holes. He played the last five holes of the front nine five-under and that included an eagle at the par four eighth where he holed out a lob wedge from 110-yards for a deuce. He followed that spectacular shot with a chip-in birdie at the ninth.
Mickelson shot 31 on that nine but staggered home in 37 for a four-under par 68 that left him four back of early leaders Jeff Overton and Anirban Lahiri. Overton shot his 64 on the Nicklaus course while Lahiri conquered the LaQuinta layout. Later in the afternoon wave, Jerry Kelly added another 64 at LaQuinta and Jason Dufner put up a 64 on the Nicklaus course.
Despite his poor back nine Mickelson was ever the optimist afterward. “A solid round,” is how he described his day.
“My swing is back in plane,” he declared. “The score was okay but some of the nines and wedges were a little off. I’m looking forward to getting over on the other courses where I can let it out (the driver) a little more.”
The field plays three different courses the first 54-holes then moves to the TPC Stadium course for the final round.
There won’t be a good handle on the leaders until everyone has played all three.
On a day where there was no wind and scoring was low, Adam Hadwin had the best early round on the Stadium course, the most difficult of the three, with a six-under par 66.
