Mickelson's "Intent" Revealed: To Drive Finchem Batty

Mauricio, this is Mr. Finchem's office calling, we would like to move up that color session scheduled for next week to this week.

Oh, Mr. Daly acting up again?

No.

Mr. Woods?

No.

Mr. Mickelson?

Yes Mauricio, you obviously saw the telecast. So how about Thursday, just be at the airport and the Falcon will take you up to Chicago and back, just like in May when you took care of him.

Oh I remember, the drug testing stress. Well tell Mr. Finchem I'll bring the nice light brown he prefers for the summer months.

I will tell him.

Steve Elling pieces together the details of Phil Mickelson pulling down his pants and turning a positively joyous, downright classic golf tournament into yet more millionaire bickering spilling out on national TV (I knew I should have left for the beach after NBC signed off!).

And you know the way Elling spells it out, as well as Chris Lewis (who transcribes the Jimmy Roberts interview) I think Phil's going to have people feeling sorry for the Commissioner. That's not easy to do!

If you want to read it straight from Mr. Family Man's mouth, here are the key excerpts, with the point misser and rally kill trimmed for your reading sanity. Well, except for that in-house, PGA Tour designed kill...

Q. Based on some comments on TV, is your rival now Tiger or Tim?

PHIL MICKELSON: Oh, no, no. I don't have a problem, it's just that I'm a little conflicted on some things because I'm trying to -- I want to have a balance in my life, and I certainly feel the obligation to play and support the FedExCup and to support the PGA TOUR, support the game of golf.

And I also want to have balance in my family life, and my family has sacrificed a lot this year because it's been a very difficult schedule. It's not the four FedExCup tournaments; it's the PGA, Akron right before that, only four days off after the British Open before we had to travel and playing two weeks before that, so it's been the last three months having no more than two days off at a time and working to do corporate outings in between.

Can we set this to Schubert? Maybe string quartet No. 14 to really capture the totality of this terrible man making you play so much golf for all that money in between your corporate outtings!

So our time together has struggled, and I want to have a balance there. They start school next week, so I have that conflict -- or obligation and desire to be there.

My frustration from this past year came from asking for a couple of things in the FedExCup that weren't done and not really feeling all that bad now if I happen to miss. So I'm not really sure how it's going to play out.

Like I said, he's making you feel for the Commissioner isn't he?

Q. You said a couple discussion points with Tim that you were looking for vis-á-vis the design of the Playoff structure.

PHIL MICKELSON: I don't want to go into it. Just I want to support it and I certainly feel the obligation to, but I also have to have a balance both ways.

Q. Did you talk about it this week?
PHIL MICKELSON: Every time I see him this year I bring it up.

And this would be what? Oh right, that's confidential.

Here's a nice endorsement for the playoffs, again, after a thrilling finish that has done wonders for his season, brought great attention to his sponsors, wonderful vibes for Boston fans and in general, boosted the FedEx Cup's profile....

Q. Were you more excited about the FedExCup or more excited about 2008?

PHIL MICKELSON: I'm excited about the way this week went. I loved this finish, I loved being able to play three rounds with the best player of arguably all time and certainly the best player in the world today, and to be able to come out on top feels great, and that just leads to excitement for the coming here, as well as I guess the finish of the year. But '08 is when our next major is, so that's kind of what I'm looking forward to.

Q. Are you going to play next week?
PHIL MICKELSON: I was just saying, I don't know.

Q. But you'll be in Chicago --
PHIL MICKELSON: I'm not sure. I don't know.

Q. You'll be there tomorrow, though?
PHIL MICKELSON: I'll be there tomorrow. I had already scheduled an outing I was planning on playing, but I'm not sure.

Q. If you were to skip next week, would that mean skipping the last one, too?
PHIL MICKELSON: No, I would end up going to Atlanta.
STEWART MOORE: I believe we've touched on 12 and 18. Can you briefly take us through the rest of your birdies?

Are rally kills by the in-house PGA Tour staff eligible for Rally Killer of the Year? Hmmm...