Mickelson right back in the mix at Masters

Phil Mickelson got exactly the start he wanted Thursday at the Augusta National Golf Club.

The three-time Masters winner then used that to move forward to a strong first round. Mickelson finished at 1-under-par 71 after an eagle on the par-5 second hole gave him plenty of early momentum.

“Oh, that was cool, To make a putt on 2 for eagle and get the round started like that was exciting,” Mickelson said. “But I knew that there were still a lot of tough holes left out there, and just trying to make pars was kind of the goal ... and then take advantage of some of the par-5s.”

Mickelson added a birdie on the difficult par-3 fourth hole to sit tied for the lead at 3 under early in the day. But he had bogeys on Nos. 5 and 6 to drop back to 1 under.

Another set of back-to-back bogeys on Nos. 10 and 11 dropped him to 1 over, but he responded down the stretch to birdie the 13th and 16th to get back under par.

“Man, I love it,” Mickelson said of the tough, windy conditions. “I thought anything at par or better was going to be a great score, and it is. But because the greens are receptive, you can make birdies, and you can stop balls on the greens and make easy pars on a lot of holes.

“The problem is there’s a lot of holes out here that you can have a big number, and you just have to be careful of that.”

This story was originally published April 6, 2017 at 6:45 PM with the headline "Mickelson right back in the mix at Masters."