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| July 8, 2006 | Saturday | Jumadi-ul-Sani 11, 1427 |
Golf: Closing eagle lifts Mickelson into contention
LEMONT (Illinois), July 7: Phil Mickelson, bouncing back in his first event since a final-round meltdown cost him a US Open title, eagled his final hole here Thursday to move one stroke off the US PGA Western Open lead.
The US veteran's four-under par 67 left him one stroke behind co-leaders Daniel Chopra of Sweden, David McKenzie of Australia and Americans Joe Ogilvie and Lucas Glover at the five million-dollar tournament.
Mickelson sought his third consecutive major crown last month at Winged Foot but a double-bogey on the 18th hole left the left-hander a loser.
Returning here at Cog Hill with a 10th-tee start, Mickelson began with a pair of bogeys but birdied the 13th and 15th to make the turn at par.
He made three birdies in a row starting at the third hole before a bogey at the sixth ended the run, setting the stage for an eagle at the 600-yard par-5 ninth, his 4-wood from 267 yards barely missing an albatross to share the lead.
“Well obviously to make an eagle required some luck,” Mickelson said.
“I was just trying to get on the green and the ball ended up rolling by the pin.
It's fun to finish a round of golf like that.
Sharing fifth with Mickelson on 67 were Fiji's Vijay Singh, Americans Davis Love and Charles Warren and Aussies Stephen Leaney and Robert Allenby.
World number one Tiger Woods, a three-time Western Open champion, stumbled to a one-over 72 to share 82nd place.
He managed only 13 greens in regulation and just nine of 14 fairways.
Woods, a winner in two of his eight US PGA starts this year, birdied the fifth hole but followed with a bogey at six. Back-to-back bogeys at 14 and 15 dropped him back but a birdie at 18 soothed the sting a bit.
Leading first round scores:
66 - Daniel Chopra, Lucas Glover, David McKenzie, Joe Ogilvie
67 - Robert Allenby, Stephen Leaney, Davis Love, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, Charles Warren
68 - Stephen Ames, Stuart Appleby, Shane Bertsch, Ryan Moore, K.J. Choi, Brent Geiberger, Tim Herron, Zach Johnson, Jeffrey Overton, Patrick Sheehan
69 - Carl Pettersson, Trevor Immelman, Peter Lonard , Mathew Goggin
70 - Tim Clark , Brian Davis, Luke Donald, Carlos Franco, Daisuke Maruyama, John Senden
71 - Justin Rose, Camilo Villegas, Henrik Bjornstad
72 - Tiger Woods, Greg Chalmers, Nathan Green , Fredrik Jacobson, Adam Scott, Mike Weir
73 - Richard S. Johnson , Rod Pampling, Mark Hensby
74 - Arjun Atwal, Alex Cejka , Ian Leggatt, Shigeki Maruyama, Hidemichi Tanaka
75 - Mathias Gronberg
76 - Jon Mills
77 - Aaron Baddeley.
EUROPEAN OPEN
DUBLIN: First round scores from the European Open from the K Club in County Kildare on Thursday (GBR and IRL unless stated, par 72):
65 - Niclas Fasth , Bradley Dredge
66 - Paul Casey, Angel Cabrera
67 - Nicolas Colsaerts, Peter O'Malley, Stephen Dodd
68 - Simon Khan, Jamie Spence, Jyoti Randhawa , Peter Hanson
69 - Retief Goosen, Graeme McDowell, Ignacio Garrido, Soren Kjeldsen, Anders Hansen, Thongchai Jaidee, Colin Montgomerie, Darren Clarke, Damien McGrane, Simon Dyson
70 - Paul Dwyer, Peter Baker, Padraig Harrington, Paul Broadhurst, Steve Webster, Wade Ormsby, Andrew Coltart, Leif Westerberg , Simon Wakefield, Richard Sterne, Anthony Wall, Jamie Donaldson, Graeme Storm, Jeev Milkha Singh, Lee Westwood, Peter Gustafsson, Maarten Lafeber, Gary Emerson, Francesco Molinari, Louis Oosthuizen, Benn Barham, Gary Evans.—Agencies
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