It is rare for a player considered a favorite in a major not to see the course until the day before the tournament starts, but that’s how the world’s No. 1-ranked player will try to handle Baltusrol Golf Club, the site of this year’s PGA Championship.
Advertisement
“It’s a long week”.
“I’m not going to go into a cave and stay in there until I die because I didn’t win a major”.
“I feel good. I feel good with the way I drove the ball at the stretch (at Troon), hitting drivers and being able to put it in play there on a hard golf course in tough conditions”, Mickelson said. I actually had a big learning curve where I played a few holes and I was signing so much, I probably shouldn’t have done as much on the course, waited ’til after.
That means the tournament officials have deemed only 70 golf strokes necessary to complete the 18 hole course.
“Before, if I made a couple of bogeys, I would get a little bit angry”. So I guess it comes across as a bit different, yeah.
The 32-year-old told reporters: “I’m feeling good. So you need to play your way into the tournament, shoot a decent score and see what happens”.
“That obviously encourages me a lot”.
When Henrik Stenson’s putt gently toppled into the cup on the final hole of the British Open two weeks ago, there was more significance to it than the closing 63 that earned the Swede his first major triumph. “At the end of the week, if I’m on top of the leaderboard and I get to No. 1, obviously that would be great and be a big accomplishment”. It’s not that serious. “I asked them, ‘Who got those?’ And they all pointed at one guy”. Jason Day in taking his first major in the 2015 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits.
Day, already tired after going right from the British Open into his title defence at last week’s Canadian Open, has since caught a bug from his children and was up late on Tuesday in a hospital after his wife had an allergic reaction.
28 – If world number one and defending champion Jason Day finishes lower than 28th, Johnson can replace him at the top of the rankings by finishing outright second or better.
“It was important for me to validate my Masters win, because I had said going in that when I win one, that I’m going to win multiple (times); it wasn’t going to be one and done”, Mickelson said.
“Especially with the driver, the challenge is now not so much the swing plane”, Mickelson said, “but trusting it and not having to do something at impact, but just let the club go through and not manipulate it”. We were there until 2am or something like that. Ellie was kind of freaking out in the back of the bus [Day’s motorhome] which is understandable because she got all red. “She’s fine. Everything was great but I had to call the paramedics over. She’s fine now. We got a little loss of sleep but we’re fine”. This is unlike most major golf courses, which are par 72.
Advertisement
Day tried to take a crash course on the Baltusrol layout during the champions dinner he hosted on Tuesday where he spent about 30 minutes talking to the head pro about almost every hole on the course. “Every aspect of my game, I’m very comfortable with”.
