What they said: Phil Mickelson

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MORE INTERVIEWS: the Memorial Tournament transcript archive

Q. 2 under on the day. Do you feel like you're in this thing going into the weekend?

PHIL MICKELSON: Well, I need a good one tomorrow. I had a chance to shoot something in the 60s and move up the leaderboard and didn't capitalize on a lot of opportunities. But there's some good chances out there and if I can get a good round tomorrow I hopefully will get in the mix for Sunday, which is the goal.

Q. Aside from Stricker there's a lot of room there.

PHIL MICKELSON: There is, but you know, the course is yielding some birdies. It's playing beautifully. The greens are so true, they're some of the best we play, and they're receptive. So we're able to get the ball close. But I just haven't gotten the ball in the hole there on my opportunities.

Q. Any tougher today than yesterday?

PHIL MICKELSON: I didn't think so. It hasn't been blowing. It's been slightly swirling, but it's such a soft wind it hasn't been too big of a challenge. I'm surprised the scores aren't a little lower.

Q. What kind of lie did you have on your second shot on 11?

PHIL MICKELSON: The lie was okay, it was just a vertical bank. I got lucky. It was really a lucky break. I very rarely go around this golf course without one or two penalty strokes. There's water 23 or 24 different shots, and the one time I hit it in the hazard today I was able to play it and ended up making birdie on the hole, so I had a really good break.

Q. After a long delay that obviously didn't throw you off at all?

PHIL MICKELSON: No, it didn't matter. We were going to end up waiting a little bit throughout the first two rounds here, but I think the weekend after the cut it should move pretty quickly.

Q. Should that ruling have gone a little quicker?

PHIL MICKELSON: I don't know. I mean, I've had my share of rulings, and everybody has, but we were waiting throughout the course of the day on most shots, so it's not as though we were holding anybody up.

Q. You have the 2 iron in your bag. How often did you hit it today?

PHIL MICKELSON: I hit it quite a bit. This course doesn't allow me to hit very many drivers because the fairways turn where my driver runs out. A perfect example is 13. I hit the ball six yards right of that bunker which I wasn't able to carry and it went through into the rough. I have to hit 2 iron and 3 wood off most tees.