Phil Mickelson might be trying to beat Father Time but his game looked pretty old Thursday at the Safeway Open.
So old in fact that Lefty got drilled by former Dallas quarterback and CBS color analyst Tony Romo.
Romo opening with a nifty two-under par 70 at Silverado and that earned him a tie for 28th. Fact is, he beat Mickelson by a whopping five shots. Lefty wasn’t the only big name Romo got the best of. He nipped Justin Thomas (71) by a shot as well.
His sub-par effort put Romo in position to make the cut for the first time in a PGA Tour event. If he does, CBS will have to get a substitute for Sunday — Romo was scheduled to be in the booth with Jim Nance for the Bears-Vikings game Sunday afternoon.
Mickelson ran into major trouble on day one at the easiest hole on the course. After a pretty decent drive, Mickelson had an iron into the par five and commenced to hit back-to-back shots out-of-bounds.
Here’s how Lefty described what led to a quadruple-bogey nine:
“I tried to carve, kind of cut a five (iron) and then ultimately a six-iron out of the rough, and the ball just kind of shot left off the face out of bounds. And it happened twice. So that hole has bitten me.”
Phil managed just three birdies on the day and his tee-to-green game was just as wayward as it was last summer. He hit just three of 14 fairways and hit only 11 greens in regulation.
He’s 10 behind co-leaders Adam Scott and Andrew Landry by 10 shots and in danger of missing the cut. He’s never finished worse than T-17 in each of the last three years.
Despite the 75, Phil was optimistic about Friday.
“If it were a few months ago, I would let it get to me a lot more than it did today,” Mickelson said. “I actually have a lot more confidence and energy and excitement to play, and my attitude’s just a lot better. So I’ll come out tomorrow, I’m going to shoot a good round. I’ll shoot six, seven-under par tomorrow (Friday). I really believe that. I believe the game is close enough to do that.”
