Thursday, January 28th, 2010 
michael
“It’s important for Tiger to come back”
Mickelson discusses Woods, groove changes, weight loss and more
The world’s highest-ranked active player, world No.2 Phil Mickelson, his making his first appearance of the season at the Farmers Insurance Open in his home town San Diego this week. As is customary, he stopped past the media centre to answer a few questions. Here are the highlights from his press conference…
Phil on… Tiger
“The game of golf needs him to come back. I mean, it's important for him to come back and be a part of the sport. But right now he's got a lot more important things going on in his life. Amy and I are good friends with both Tiger and Elin, and we care deeply about how this turns out. But I'm going to choose not to talk about it publicly anymore.”
Phil on… new grooves
“The groove issue is going to be an interesting issue this year. I don't know how it's going to play out. I've looked at this from a couple of different ways because I've tested some of the i2 wedges. And in dealing with the USGA, we have on one side conforming and legal grooves, and on the other side we have approved for play, and they're not the same thing. I've sent in grooves that are legal but have not been approved for play, and I feel like the i2 grooves are not legal or don't conform, but they are approved for play. And after talking about the TOUR and the USGA, the only thing that matters is are they approved for play. So I don't feel that there's any problem if I were to play those clubs or if anybody else were. All that matters is that it is okay under the rules of golf. This is a big change. I think it's a ridiculous change. I think that it costs each manufacturer millions of dollars. I think it's confusing, and I don't agree with it one bit. But it's a big change for the game of golf, and we've got to adapt.”
Phil on… his schedule
“Amy and my mom are doing great, and things have gone very well. But even in the best-case scenario, dealing with cancer is never easy, and so it's not easy for them. We were just back in Houston Monday and Tuesday for some treatments. My mom had surgery just recently, and things are going very well. But again, it's never easy. We had a couple of procedures scheduled for this off-season that got postponed for various reasons, and we had to move it into March, and this affected some of our family trips. So how this is playing out is the week of the Tucson Match Play is a week that my kids are out of school and that I'm going to end up skipping this year, not because I want to. I think it's a wonderful tournament, I love the Match Play, I love Tucson. But it was the best week for us to have a family vacation that we had to reschedule because, again, of our procedures. I expect this to kind of happen a little bit throughout the year, maybe missing tournaments I would like to play or normally would play. But later on in the year I'll probably add a tournament that I hadn't originally planned on playing to kind of offset it.”
Phil on… aiming for world No.1 :
“At the end of last year I felt like things were starting to really come together. Taking some weaknesses and turning them into that strength gives me the confidence or the belief that this could be an exceptional year. My whole career I've been trying to get to No.1, I just haven't had much success. But this year whether or not Tiger is in the field, I still believe that this is an opportunity for me to compete in majors, to challenge him. I've had some great head-to-head success in the last year or two, and I expect this year with or without him to be one of the best years of my career.”
Phil on... losing weight
“I've had the same trainer now for seven years, Sean Cochran, and we had a good off-season program. Again, I didn't play much golf for the last five or six weeks so we were able to get a little more time in the gym. Also, I tried to increase speed. I'm trying to increase speed to take advantage of some of our technology, some of our low-spin drivers, some of our new golf balls, and to be able to do that, I had to have a little bit more strength.”
Phil on... turning 40 this year
“I think in the last five or ten years where fitness has become a little bit bigger of an issue on tour, where guys like Vijay Singh who are in incredible shape and played very well in their mid to late 40s, guys like Kenny Perry who is almost 50 now has played some great golf. I don't think it's the same as it was 20 years ago, and so I expect to be able to play at a high level throughout my 40s.”
Phil on... attracting sponsors to the PGA Tour
“I think it's important for us as a tour to prove to the corporations that are involved in the game that this is the best vehicle for them to spend their marketing dollars. It's up to us to show that in every way, whether it's personal relationships with their clients, whether it's interaction on the golf course, making for a great day. We've got to provide a vehicle that exposes their company to the public in a positive light, that the monies they spend, whether it's $5 to $8 million an event, they can spend that anywhere. And they're going to be tighter with the money that they spend marketing their product and their company, and we need to prove to them that this is the best way, the most effective way for them to get the most for their dollar.”
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