Mickelson Reiterates Innocence In Lively Post Round Session

It's always nice to have Jim Nantz and extra security to check out the scrum area, as Phil Mickelson's post-round appearance prompted a full house at the indoor Muirfield Village interview area.

I've filed an item for The Loop on a strange scene that included an upbeat, confident and on-message Mickelson reiterating that he had done nothing wrong related to the charges. Mickelson posted a third-round 72 that he called, "interesting."

Noteworthy in all of this: CBS opening its telecast with quotes from the Wall Street Journal story and Mickelson's statement, issued to select reporters at 2 a.m. last night. The network showed all of the post-round press conference questions related to the investigation before turning their focus to The Memorial.

Update on 2014-06-01 00:16 by Geoff

**Bob Harig added this regarding the scene:

And so it was that Mickelson emerged from the scoring area at Muirfield Village Golf Club on Saturday afternoon, saw an unusually large group of media, smiled and said, "Awesome."

It undoubtedly wasn't, and Mickelson got a big laugh, all knowing that nobody was really there to talk about the even-par 72 he just shot during the third round of the Memorial.

Steve DiMeglio said Mickelson's behavior exuded that of a man not distracted by the investigation and the provocative tactics by the FBI, painting a picture of the post round interview scene and writing that it "was Phil being Phil as he played on despite being under investigation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Securities and Exchange Commission for alleged insider trading. As distractions go, this is a pretty big one."

And Rex Hoggard concluded the same thing.