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NORTHERN TRUST OPEN

February 15, 2008

Phil Mickelson

PACIFIC PALISADES, CALIFORNIA

STEWART MOORE: Phil Mickelson, thanks for spending a few moments here in the interview room at the Northern Trust Open. Fantastic second round, 64 out there, and birdies on 17 and 18. Just some opening comments on the round.
PHIL MICKELSON: It was a good day today. I made a lot of putts. A lot of putts went in. Shots ended up close. It was a good day.

Q. Can you talk about this place, what it means to you? And I think I heard you correctly last week, you said, "This is the one place I haven't won that I would really love to win." Can you expand on that a little bit?
PHIL MICKELSON: Well, I haven't won the U.S. or British Open either, and I really want to win those, but let not jump a head of ourselves.
On the West Coast, this is the tournament that's eluded me and I've tried very hard to win. I had a good chance last year and let it slip away. I'm hoping to have a good weekend here, because this tournament means a lot to me. The West Coast means a lot to me.

Q. Is some of that the tradition, as well, of this place?
PHIL MICKELSON: I think the history of the golf course is one of the things. Also, it was my second TOUR event I ever played in the L.A. Open; and playing Riviera with so much history and coming out here and watching and partaking in the event as a teenager just has a special place in my heart.

Q. Can you talk about making it from 60 feet out on No. 5 and what that did for the rest of your round?
PHIL MICKELSON: Well, those are kind of bonus shots. That was lucky that that went in much.
It was not a hard putt to 2-putt because it was straight uphill. I felt like I could get it close okay. But it was very fortunate to go in, and it was just a bonus shot.

Q. What is it about your game that you play here sporadically and were never really in the thick of things, but now in the last two years looks like you have pretty good command of the place. What's changed, I guess.
PHIL MICKELSON: I don't have a great answer for you. I've missed the tournament for a few years because it was over extending my schedule and now I've got a great system. It never even dawned on me to commute and this has worked out great. I get to be at home for dinner, see the kids, sleep in my own bed, and I think that's helped me play well here. I think that's been a big plus, because it doesn't feel like it's an away week. It doesn't feel like I'm traveling. It doesn't feel like I've been out on the road very long.

Q. Do you think that's the difference? Even when you did show up in the odd years, it didn't seem like you played well.
PHIL MICKELSON: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why it's turned. But when I played last year, I felt really good on the course and I felt I was going to play well this week, or the week last year. And I felt heading into this week, I was really close to playing really well.

Q. People talk a lot about the golf gods working for or against you, and you talked about that earlier, the wind, getting the best of both days and just how that played out.
PHIL MICKELSON: The early/late tee times had a huge advantage this week. A lot of the times, mow of the weeks, it doesn't make too much of a difference but every now and then, there will be an advantage on one wave, and we certainly had that. I mean, all of the scores that are any good, 90 percent of them are from the early/late wave.
We avoided wind yesterday morning. It died down this afternoon. Just we got very lucky.

Q. Scott McCarron was in here, and of course, he missed a year and a half golf; are you familiar with the injury he had, and does anybody talk about that coming back? He and Brandt Jobe both on major medical.
PHIL MICKELSON: Yeah, we talked about it a little bit last week, or maybe it was two weeks ago, and I didn't realize that he had been out over a here.
Sometimes we get in our own world of our family and traveling and our corporate responsibilities, and we just lose sight of what's going on with some players. We had Dudley Hart and David Duval out last year. I love the new medical for family. I think that's a great idea. It allows you to support your family and your spouse and your kids and not have a huge negative effect on your career. It's really cool and it's good to see them back out.

Q. I think 64 is the lowest you've shot here, and how big was the birdie, or the birdies on last two holes? You had been playing so well earlier in the round, and then just kind of went along with pars. How big were they at the end?
PHIL MICKELSON: Yeah, pars are not bad here. Nobody is going to be making a ton of birdies. The greens are firm and it's hard to get it close. A lot of times, you just maintain the round with pars and you'll get a few birdies here and there.
But the biggest shot that set up those two birdies is the par putt on 16. It kept momentum of the round going and it didn't let the round kind of slip away.
16 wasn't an overly difficult hole. I just hit it a little long. But making that, probably, 12-footer up the hill for par gave me a little bit of a momentum keeper, and then I came in with two birdies on 17 and 18. 17 wasn't a hard birdie, though, but 18 was a good hole.

Q. Do you feel like you're striking the ball well?
PHIL MICKELSON: Well, I hit it a lot better today than I did yesterday, and I'm putting a lot better. I'm hitting a lot of good putts. I'm reading them well. My speed is much better, so I'm hitting a lot of good putts.
I felt like my game has been really close, but I haven't quite put it together yet. And today it started to come together. But we still have two more rounds, so hopefully I'll keep improving on the way I'm striking it and the way that I've been putting, too.

Q. Firstly, what did you hit in on 18?
PHIL MICKELSON: 6-iron.

Q. And was there any shot or shots today that you were particularly pleased with, and why?
PHIL MICKELSON: I hit a shot into 1 to start the round. I hit a 3-iron from, I don't know, 247, that ended up 12 feet. That kind of got me off to a good start, an easy 2-putt birdie. I almost made eagle. I thought that was a nice way to start the round because it wasn't an easy pin to get up-and-down from a lot of places around the green.
STEWART MOORE: On that note, can we briefly go through your other birdies? We touched on 1 and 18; the ones in between.
PHIL MICKELSON: I birdied 4 with a 5-iron to ten feet and made it.
5, I made the 60-footer.
6 I hit a good shot on the green about 45 feet underneath the hole and 3-putted it, left it five feet short and missed it.
Came back though with a birdie on 7. I hit a 3-iron and a pitching wedge to two feet, two and a half feet.
And I birdied 9. I hit driver and a gap wedge to 12 feet.
Birdied 10. I hit a 3-wood left of the green but chipped up to three feet.
Birdied 11. Hit driver, 3-iron just right of the green and chipped up to eight feet.
Bogeyed 12. I hit a driver in the right rough, 7-iron in the right bunker, bunker shot to 12 feet and made -- missed it.
Then 17, we talked about. I hit driver, 3-iron to 45 yards and hit it in there 3 1/2 feet.
Then 18, driver, 6-iron to 20 feet.

Q. Gap wedge on 9?
PHIL MICKELSON: Gap wedge on 9, yeah. The wind changed when I was out there.

Q. It wasn't all you?
PHIL MICKELSON: The wind changing? Yesterday I had to hit 5-iron, or I would have if I could have hit the fairway. (Laughter) Today it was gap wedge.

Q. I'm curious about your travel, how you get home and do it so quickly? How much of that has to do with the traffic around here, and how long does it take you to get home from here?
PHIL MICKELSON: Door to door, about an hour and ten minutes. It's not bad once I leave here. It takes about 15 minutes to get to Santa Monica Airport. I use some side streets. GPS is nice. That's been helpful.

Q. I live in Sherman Oaks and can't get there that fast.
PHIL MICKELSON: I've beaten Bones just about every night. Where's TR? He drove four and a half miles for 90 minutes, and we're back home having dinner and he's still on the freeway.

Q. A little off the subject here, coming up next week starts the 10th year of the World Golf Championships series. From when they first started in '99 to now, how are they it different, do you think?
PHIL MICKELSON: Well, they are all played in the U.S. They weren't all played in the U.S. originally I think. That's probably a nice benefit if you're an American player.

Q. Do you notice any lack of separation maybe that there once was, where there's so many good tournaments now and so many players from around the world that play these good tournaments now that they are not as distinctive, or is that not true?
PHIL MICKELSON: I don't know. It hard to say that, because the majors have such an importance that it's hard for any other event to compete with.
I think THE PLAYERS does. I think THE PLAYERS is kind of right there, but there's a huge fall-off, whether it's a World Golf Championships or whether it's even the FedExCup or whether it's at Wachovia Championship which is a great event. Or even here at the L.A. Open, the Northern Trust Open, because there's so much history here, it's such a special tournament and guys want to win it but the majors really separate themselves.

Q. You mentioned it never dawned on you to do this commute. Who gave you the idea?
PHIL MICKELSON: Ultimately I came up with it but it just took me 15 years, yeah. (Laughter).
STEWART MOORE: Thanks so much and good luck this weekend.

End of FastScripts

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