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THE MEMORIAL TOURNAMENT PRESENTED BY NATIONWIDE

June 5, 2016

Phil Mickelson

Dublin, Ohio

Q. (No microphone)?
PHIL MICKELSON: I thought I played pretty well this week. I didn't putt as well as I've been putting this year. I played well, hit a lot of good shots. Hit more good iron shots and had more birdie opportunities than I've had in a long time. So that's a good, positive thing. I hit a lot of fairways this week. My ball striking was pretty good.

I didn't putt well enough to win, but it was a fun week. I always enjoy this golf course. I don't have a good answer as to why I have not ever played very well here in the past because I think it's a course that does suit my game, but I just haven't done it.

Q. You had three birdies in a row (No microphone).
PHIL MICKELSON: Yeah, and I hit a great shot on 8 and 9 and had two good opportunities. Uphill eight-footer on 8 that would have gotten me to 14 under, right in the mix. I pulled it fractionally and missed a ten-footer on 9 and bogeyed 10, 11, 12.

Like I said, I hit a lot of good shots, a lot of good opportunities. And hopefully I'll take a little bit of momentum here and go into Memphis and start to get really sharp for the U.S. Open, but this is a good start.

Q. On the U.S. Open, I just wanted to ask you, your long day of practice, whenever that might be, with flags around the greens and the chipping and all that stuff. Do you know when you started that, where you came up with the idea, and if you're still doing it today?
PHIL MICKELSON: Dave PELS is the one that really helped me get some direction and learn the course so that I could play it effectively back in 2004 is the first time I did it, and the first tournament I did it. I ended up winning the Masters in '04. So I've been kind of hooked. I did all that work for the '07 Open at Oakmont, and nothing's really changed. I don't really have to do that again. I'll just go out, and I've been studying the notes because they're fairly extensive. I'll just go out and practice and play and develop a game plan on how I want to play.

Q. Mike's been talking the last couple of years, Davis, about how the guys that seem to play the course the most do well. He mentioned you and Justin at Merion and Chambers (inaudible)?
PHIL MICKELSON: I think courses like Chambers last year made a big difference because there was areas where you would have a huge margin of error and you could still play it from certain spots if you knew those spots.

Oakmont doesn't have those spots. Oakmont has the only spot that you can play from is the middle of the fairway, and the only spot you can really play from is around the green. There's no recovery of misses at Oakmont. They went in and built the lips up, and essentially they're all pot bunkers, like in Europe. They're wedge out, almost sideways. So you don't have recovery. You have to play it perfectly.

Because of that, I don't feel like it's really that big of a deal to really go learn the golf course as much as it is to get your game sharp because you've got to perform and execute.

Q. (No microphone)?
PHIL MICKELSON: There were dozens of guys that ended up having medical treatment last year. I wasn't the only one. I was out for a couple of months, but I know of three dozen people that had problems.

Q. How different were the conditions today than the previous three days?
PHIL MICKELSON: Here?

Q. Yeah.
PHIL MICKELSON: I thought it was very similar. Maybe a little more wind. I thought very similar, soft greens but fast. I thought the wind made it a little bit more challenging, but it was a really, really great golf tournament. The course was just spectacular. It was in great shape. It was a fun event.

Q. Is there a lot you have to figure out on the greens at Oakmont even at this point? Not so much the break, but just the speed. Is it that big of a deal to get used to, compared to say here or in Memphis? Is it a big change?
PHIL MICKELSON: Not really. Not really different from here. They're 15, 15 1/2 at Oakmont, a little more pitch, but we're 14 1/2 here, so not that much different.

Q. Is it just that the pitch is more severe? Is that what leads to the issues that people have on those greens?
PHIL MICKELSON: Yes, they were designed in the '20s when the greens were rolling at 7 on the Stimpmeter. Now they're at 15 1/2. So balls won't stay in the areas where you used to be able to put a pin.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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