Phil Mickelson shoots 61, takes lead in PGA Tour Champions debut

Just about the only poor shot Phil Mickelson hit in his PGA Tour Champions debut was a wayward iron off the tee.

He still turned it into a birdie.

It was one of five straight on the back nine Monday for the five-time major champion, who decided to make his over-50 debut this week after missing the cut at The Northern Trust and getting eliminated from the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup playoffs.

Mickelson finished with 11 birdies and shot a 10-under-par 61 at Ozarks National in Ridgedale, Mo., to take a one-shot lead over David McKenzie.

“It’s a fun environment. And it’s fun to see a lot of the guys I grew up watching, and played with them for a number of years, and played a bunch of Ryder Cups and Presidents Cups with,” Mickelson said.

K.J. Choi, making his second start on the PGA Tour Champions, was joined in a group at 7-under by Rocco Mediate, Rod Pampling and Tim Petrovic.

ELSEWHERE

Serena nearly upset,

then rallies to win

Her yells of “Come on!” filling a stadium devoid of spectators, Serena Williams was pushed to the brink of a stunning loss in her longest match since 2012 before pulling away with a perfect tiebreaker and edging Arantxa Rus 7-6 (6), 3-6, 7-6 (0) on Monday at the Western & Southern Open in New York.

Rus is a Dutch qualifier ranked No. 72 whose flat, left-handed strokes from the baseline gave Williams some trouble. Williams dropped four games in a row in the second set, then did so again in the third, when she fell behind 6-5.

Rus served for the match there and, at deuce in that game, was two points from victory. She wouldn’t win another point. A double-fault gave Williams a break chance, and an errant groundstroke sent the match to the concluding tiebreaker.

On the men’s side, top-seeded Novak Djokovic was bothered by a bad neck that a trainer massaged twice, double-faulting seven times and trailing by a break in each set before taking the last four games for a 7-6 (2), 6-4 victory over Ricardas Berankis.

Second-seeded Dominic Thiem, a three-time major finalist, wasn’t competitive in a 6-2, 6-1 loss to Filip Krajinovic, and No. 5 Alexander Zverev hit 11 double-faults — five in his last two service games — while being beaten by Andy Murray 6-3, 3-6, 7-5.

NFL: New England re-signed 35-year-old kicker Nick Folk, giving rookie fifth-round draft pick Justin Rohrwasser some competition for the job.

• Browns rookie safety Grant Delpit, a second-round pick from LSU who was expected to start, tore his right Achilles tendon during practice.

Colleges: Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney and men’s basketball coach Brad Brownell are among 15 members of the school’s athletic department taking a voluntary 10% salary cut to offset losses because of the coronavirus pandemic. Clemson said about half of its full-time employees will be impacted.

MLS: Alexander Ring scored and host NYCFC won 1-0 to hand the Columbus Crew their first loss of the season.

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