Phil Mickelson says his wife Amy and mother Mary are making good progress in their respective battles with breast cancer.
Phil Mickelson says his wife Amy and mother Mary are making good progress in their respective battles with breast cancer.
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"I want to respect their wishes and not go into too much detail, but I feel like we've been fortunate," he said on Wednesday on the eve of the World Golf Championships Bridgestone Invitational.
"We've had a great six weeks. We're in a much better place than we were. I'm excited about that, and the chance to play a little golf too."
When last spotted on a golf course, Mickelson left after a late meltdown at the US Open in June, where he made two late bogeys to finish two strokes behind winner Lucas Glover. It was his record fifth runner-up showing at the US Open.
World No 2 Mickelson decided to play here at Firestone Country Club primarily to prepare for next week's PGA Championship at Hazeltine in Minnesota, the year's final major.
"If you'd asked me two months ago would I able to play again in August, I didn't think that would be possible, but we've had some good things happen along the way," Mickelson said.
"I don't want to commit to anything long term. This is going to be a long road. I hope things will continue to go well but I don't know that.
"Mentally right now I'm in a much better place than where we were in the Open.
"I expect to play well. I think that mental rehearsal is every bit as important as physical rehearsal and when I had my nurse gown on I would mentally rehearse shots and stuff to keep myself sharp, even though I wasn't touching a club."
While golf has been on Mickelson's backburner lately, Tiger Woods is in the midst of an unusually heavy schedule, with this the middle tournament in a three-week stretch.
After shockingly missing the cut at the British Open, he made a late decision to play last week's Buick Open, and was rewarded with a confidence-boosting victory.
And Firestone is a particularly happy hunting ground for Woods, who has won six times in 10 starts here.
He has won four times on tour since returning to action in February after major knee surgery, but his 2009 resume is conspicuously lacking a major title.
Woods sounds surprised to have won so regularly.
"Where I was physically then and where I'm at now, is just night and day," he said.
"It was hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. To win, and not only to win but be as consistent as I've been the entire year coming back, that's one of the things I'm probably most proud of.
"I played very sparingly to get myself into this position physically, so I didn't have any setbacks. That's one of the reasons I feel I can play a lot late."
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