PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

May 21, 2021

Phil Mickelson

The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island

TV Quick Quotes

Q. Phil Mickelson with five birdies on the second nine to card a 69 and leave the course T2. Tremendous job today. I want to start with the roar when you birdied the last. The people lost their minds. What's that feel like?

PHIL MICKELSON: It's really fun, obviously, to make a putt on the last hole, finish a round like that and then to have that type of support here has been pretty special. But it's been a lot of fun so far.

Q. How would you describe your performance today?

PHIL MICKELSON: So I've been playing really well. I was a little shaky on 16, 17 and 18 with the putter. Very tentative. And then I was able to make some adjustments and putt well on my back nine, the front, and made a lot of good putts on that side.

The other thing, too, is my brother is doing a phenomenal job judging the wind, downwind, into the wind, and getting a good picture of how I need to flight it to get 20 yards of help. When we're playing into this wind we're getting as as much as 22 to 38 yards of hurt depending on the trajectory and so forth. Making that type of adjustments is very difficult to do, and he's been doing a phenomenal job. We've been working very well together as a team, so we've been hitting a lot of clubs pin high.

Q. Midway through the round the wind picked up dramatically. How did you have to adjust?

PHIL MICKELSON: It picked up and then it started to quarter like it did yesterday out of the east rather than the north, so it was going to be a more difficult wind. What happens is because you have nine holes basically going one way, nine holes going the other and we tee off right in the middle, I had the first four holes wasn't too bad, and then my next nine-hole stretch was going to be right back into this wind, and so when I made a few iffy strokes on 17 and 18 and made two bogeys, I had to be patient because those next -- I still had four holes to play into that wind, and if you make a mistake, that wind will really make it a lot bigger, expound on it.

I had to be patient, but I was able to make a few birdies there.

Q. Sir, I have an update for you. You have the leader of the tournament as we stand here right now; Grace just double bogeyed 17.

PHIL MICKELSON: So if you were to tell me that like Sunday night, I'd really enjoy that, but right now there's a lot of work to do. I'm not sure it's going to stand today. We'll see. But the fact is I'm heading into the weekend with an opportunity and I'm playing really well and I'm having a lot of fun doing it.