The press conference is over, and The Match is next.
After some opening remarks from emcee Adam Lefkoe and Turner president David Levy on Tuesday at Shadow Creek, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson took the stage to discuss their $9 million showdown. It was the first time both Woods and Mickelson sat down together to break down the event with the media.
While there wasn’t a lot of new information that we learned about the event, we did get to see a little bit of humor from the pair, especially Mickelson.
Here are our favorite lines from the presser on Tuesday.
The showdown between Woods and Mickelson begins at 3 p.m. ET on Friday on pay-per-view.
1. “Tiger is six years younger than I am, even though he doesn’t look it,” Mickelson said.
2. Asked if Woods has been living in his head for 20 years, like Woods said was the case last week, Mickelson replied, “Yeah, but there’s a lot of empty space in there.”
3. Minutes into the press conference, Woods and Mickelson had already bet $200k of their own money after Mickelson said he was going to birdie the opener.
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4. Mickelson, after Woods talked about what Lefty meant to the game. “Can I just appreciate the nice thing you just said about me?” Mickelson said. “Did ya’ll get that on tape?”
5. Referring to Mickelson’s Mizzen+Main commercial, the one in which Mickelson hit the dance floor and did the worm, Woods said, “I’m not dancing [if I win]. That’s not happening.” [Laughs] Added Mickelson: “I’m intimidating with my moves.”
6. “Utopian huh?” Mickelson said to Woods, needling him for his word choice when describing host venue Shadow Creek. “There’s that Stanford education. I went to Arizona State. I think it’s beautiful.”
7. Asked if there were any thought of calling it “The Match: Phil vs. Tiger,” with Mickelson’s name first, they both laughed. “That was my first loss,” Mickelson said. “And I’m trying to get it back even 1-1 on Friday.”
