VALSPAR CHAMPIONSHIP

April 30, 2021

Phil Mickelson

Innisbrook Resort (Copperhead)

Quick Quotes

Q. Talk about your day out there.

PHIL MICKELSON: I had an enjoyable day. It's a good golf course and I enjoyed the challenge of playing it.

Q. Anything particular you felt went wrong coming in?

PHIL MICKELSON: I felt like what?

Q. Anything particular you felt went wrong coming in the last few holes?

PHIL MICKELSON: Not really.

Q. You're planning to play next week, Wells Fargo, what else is on the calendar?

PHIL MICKELSON: I'll play there and the PGA for sure.

Q. And any plans for Champions Tour coming up?

PHIL MICKELSON: Not in the foreseeable -- nothing foreseeable.

Q. What do you take out of today's round, what did you get from it?

PHIL MICKELSON: I know what my problem is. I'm not physically able to keep my focus. As I've gotten older, I have a hard time focusing. And that's my challenge right now and I'm trying to come up about with -- I'm trying all different things to be able to elongate my ability to stay focused or to refocus. But when I get called off shots, like cell phones ringing or people yelling or something, my physical ability to refocus, to back away and then refocus and so forth, I'm not able -- I'm physically not able to do it right now. So I have to find techniques to be able to -- I mean, to be able to do that.

Q. Is there a specific example down the stretch where something got you?

PHIL MICKELSON: Well, it doesn't matter whether it's down the stretch or during the round or whatever, at any point I have a hard time keeping focused for a period of time. It's a physiological thing. I've actually been meeting with a lot of people and trying to figure this out. But I go through spells of three or four holes, like I did Thursday, Friday at Augusta, where I'll throw five, six shots away in a four-hole stretch and I just kind of go mind numb and my ability to regain focus has been the biggest challenge as I've gotten older. And I just, I don't have a great solution right now. But I'm working on it.

Q. Are you closer or farther away after this week?

PHIL MICKELSON: I don't know. I don't know.

Q. Looking ahead to Kiawah, when there's one-off courses like that, that you haven't seen or haven't been played in eight or nine years, do people put too much stock into how players performed that particular week in that event?

PHIL MICKELSON: Probably 50/50, because I think there is something to be said for playing a course well, being able to look at it and have a good feeling for it and have certain holes set up for shots that you like to hit. But then you also have to execute, so you want to have guys that are playing well at that time and it's, that's hard to predict eight years later, but...