THE MODERATOR: Let's welcome Phil Mickelson, the captain of HyFlyers GC, and Bryson DeChambeau, the captain of Crushers GC. Welcome, guys. Phil, last week Brendan obviously won LIV Golf Adelaide. It was the first trophy for HyFlyers GC, and HyFlyers also had a podium finish, finishing in third. Take us back through that moment and how important that is to you.
PHIL MICKELSON: Last week in Adelaide was a great week for our team. Seeing some success and results for Brendan Steele was really exciting for us because we've been with him multiple days every week in the off-season watching him work and grind and work on his game when we have a couple of months off. He's just not having any downtime. He's getting better and better and better.
To see the results pay off and to see him play the way he's able to play and the way we've seen him play, it's very encouraging for us and exciting for us as a team. That was our first podium, so it gave us a lot of momentum. It was really a special week for us, so it gives us a lot of momentum heading into Singapore.
Q. He was highly complementary of you and said he wouldn't have gotten that win if it hadn't been for you. He talked about your talks over coffee and your encouragement, telling him to swing freely. Do you realize how much of an impact that you have as a leader for the rest of the guys on your team?
PHIL MICKELSON: Well, it's nice of him to say that, and it goes both ways because I've learned a lot from him driving the golf ball and learned a lot from him in other areas. We've just kind of shared things back and forth, and that's what a really good team dynamic brings is it helps lift each other up. I'm appreciative that I've been able to help him, and he's done the same for me. It's been a two-way street.
Q. Bryson, the Crushers are first in the team standings. You guys won the team championship last year. You guys have really found the secret sauce. Can you tell us what that is?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Oh, I don't know about secret sauce. I've got to keep it close quarters. I'm not going to tell everybody everything. But I will say that we've got a great bunch of guys over here at the Crushers, and very lucky to have picked them early on, and we've stuck together like glue, Gorilla Glue I would say. They're just solid people.
More importantly, yes, we golf great and we do really well on the golf course, but they're just a great bunch of guys to hang out with and they're great family men. That's really what I appreciate about those individuals.
Like Phil said, we learn a lot from each other, and that's the cool part about what LIV provides is the ability to feed off of each other and learn and grow together. It's something that's not been afforded to us in professional golf other than in college and maybe a couple junior events, but it's certainly a lot of fun.
Our secret sauce is -- I would say personally, from my experience, is the camaraderie we have between us and the trust we have in each other.
Q. We are turning to another major Asian market. We're back in Singapore, Sentosa Golf Club. How important is Asia to the growth of the game globally and also to the growth of LIV?
PHIL MICKELSON: Yeah, being able to come here and bring professional golf at the highest level to different parts of Asia, here in Singapore, we've been to Hong Kong, went to Thailand a couple years ago. It's a huge part of the growth of the game. I grew up being able to go out and watch the PGA TOUR players in my backyard growing up in San Diego. It was something to be able to see the best players play and be inspired to try to get out there is a very big part of dreaming when you're a kid.
Bringing this level of play to these parts of Asia and seeing the young kids and their eyes, the way they look at you and how much they love golf and how much they want to get out here, that's a big part in the long-term success of the game.
As well as the cool vibe that kind of transcends the older generation like myself into the younger generation in trying to get them to see the great aspects of the game of golf provides and has given so many of us to get them involved, and hopefully they'll experience some of the great things from the game.
Q. Bryson, what are your thoughts on Asia and LIV Golf?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: It's awesome to inspire younger generations in this part of the globe. I think we're too lucky being from the States, seeing professional golf at a super high level at a young age, and it's different over here. Being able to provide that opportunity and see, like Phil said, those kids' eyes light up when we give them a golf ball or sign a hat for them or whatever it is, it's inspiring not only hopefully to them but to us. It reignites us a bit, too, and allows us to feel like we're doing something really cool that's not really been doing the way we think it should be in professional golf, like LIV is currently doing.
It's certainly exciting for me to see the individuals' eyes light up in people, and it doesn't even have to be junior. It's also old adults that are just in love with the game and they see us and they're so appreciative of us being here. We're excited to provide that more and more as years keep coming.
Q. You two have shot some videos together, obviously had a lot of fun. Bryson, can you talk about the importance or when you decided to lean heavily into the social video aspects, especially from your own brand and the team's?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: That is probably like a 15-minute answer. To summarize quite briefly, I felt like there was a missing hole in the game of golf where you look at guys like Mr. Beast or David Dobrik or whatever it is that are influencing a lot of people in the world, and I saw that market back in 2020, and I said, man, if the golf industry -- if golf could tap into that just a little bit, how many more followers we would get, how many more players we would get, how the game would just explode if we could just barely tap into a percent or a couple percent of that. You've got Mr. Beast has a couple hundred million followers and subscribers on one platform. He's got like close to a billion followers on all of his platforms.
You just look at that, and the possibilities that come with garnering that type of audience is so unique that I thought it was not only important but necessary for someone to get involved with the social media space and create cool, unique, different content that allows this game to grow.
I know that we've talked about growing the game out here at LIV and we're doing that globally, but we want to continue to enhance it, and I think what LIV has provided us the ability to do, not only from a team level, the HyFlyers and the Crushers, what we're able to do as a team commercially and social media-wise over the course of time, but for us to be able to showcase our unique abilities in different ways to consumers allows us to not only showcase our personalities but also the great level of play we have and the skill set that we have that can hopefully inspire a lot more people to play the game of golf.
That's what I wanted to try and accomplish is creating that bridge so we can bridge that gap between normal individuals and them seeing the game of golf and what the game of golf can provide from a relationship perspective towards others, there's just this crazy symbiotic relationship that a lot of people don't get the opportunity to see in the course of their life that golf provides.
So trying to bridge that gap has been a goal of mine since 2020 and developing a great team around me and playing some good golf and growing as a person is all attributed to some of that success, but it's definitely a changing landscape, and if we don't adapt and move towards that sort of model of I would say social media perspective and influencer model, I think golf could get left behind, and that's what I'm scared of, and I don't want that to happen. That's why I think LIV is such an awesome product and an awesome opportunity for us top golfers to showcase our ability, not just on the golf course but on and around the golf course as an actor, because you're a pretty good actor, right, Phil?
Q. Phil, you have been doing a lot of videos for several years now. Do you feel like you're the OG of golf viral videos?
PHIL MICKELSON: No, I just say a lot of stupid shit that goes viral. (Laughter.)
But Bryson has a beat and understanding on social media that I'm late to the party, that I don't fully understand, and I've been spending time with him and I've been starting to understand it more and more.
I think that's why we're so excited here at LIV is that a lot of these opportunities were not an option for us before LIV. We didn't have an opportunity for elevated events. We didn't have an opportunity for equity. We didn't have an opportunity to do our own social media. That was all controlled and shot down.
As we came to LIV, those are all now opportunities. Every event is an elevated event. We have equity, and we have the ability to do these social media posts and try to transcend the game of golf to different generations, and all of these things were not possible before LIV came along, so we're very appreciative that we have that opportunity, and his vision is what I'm trying to better understand because at 53 I don't fully grasp this generation and so forth and the opportunities that social media provides, and as I better understand it, I try to take advantage of it a little bit or do some of it.
But again, he is kind of the leader in that area, and he's been very open about sharing his insight and knowledge and helping me kind of grow, as well.
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: He still has five majors on me, so I'm working to get better at the game of golf.
PHIL MICKELSON: You've got a lot of time, though.
Q. Phil, the 13th hole last Sunday, we were all gasping as to what happened in the bunker, but what was more important for me was how you came out after that and made four birdies and finished. For all the golfers, the amateur golfers who go through such incidents regularly, can you share your thought process as to what you were thinking after that hole, and how did you regroup together and made those four birdies after that?
PHIL MICKELSON: Yeah, that was a difficult moment for me, and it was -- not to use his team's team, but it was crushing because we had made a move and I was playing well and I had a nice couple birdies early on, and then I went back and forth in the bunker and left him in and made an 8.
I tried to just be present. It's not easy, especially when you make a big mistake like that. I tried not to do too much. I tried to make a couple of pars, which I did, and just stabilize the round until I felt a little bit better. Then after three pars I made a birdie on 17, made a birdie on 18 and started turning it around. But I had to be patient, and I had to kind of stay in the present because there was a lot of motivation still for me to do well, for our team to do well.
I just felt awful that I hurt our team so bad in that moment and I hurt my round and my opportunity in that moment.
I just never gave up and just really tried as hard as I could, and over the course of the next 13 holes, I was able to get it turned around.
Q. Bryson, last year I remember seeing you out at the range even in this heat and humidity hitting balls after balls, and then something turned around with Singapore and the tournaments after that. Do you remember that time when you also said you were struggling so much with your game? And this last one year, what it has meant to you?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Well, a lot of it has to do with the team that I have around me, the Crushers, Paul, Charles, Ban, even the caddies and just the people, the support group that I have around me. It was a brutal time last year, and to just keep it short and sweet, I didn't really like golf at that point in time. I was struggling to figure it out and understand what was going on.
Having the success that I've had and not being able to perform at the level that I know I could, it was a weird mental feeling for me. But having that team around me just continue to push and support me to persevere on.
It's not how many times you get knocked down but how many times you get back up after you get knocked down. That's the mentality I kept taking into last year. Eventually a couple things clicked in my swing. Then we got some equipment that really worked. For me, really the big transformation was the equipment piece for me, then I go play well at Greenbrier and on from there, and it's been a lot more stable because of the equipment that I have and the trust that I put in myself now.
Certainly the level of golf is not exactly where I want it to be, but I know that I'm not too far off, and it's all because of the team and the passion that they actually had for me to get better.
It's okay, but it was like, Bryson, go get it, go figure it out, do what you need to do to figure it out. That motivation, that team aspect is really what transformed my mindset into playing some better golf if not some of the best golf of my career.
Q. Bryson, a stat that I was just seeing, Crushers are 57-under par for the Sunday rounds, and that is 14 shots better than the next place team. Again, it started here in Singapore. I don't know if you remember, you guys were 20-under par in the final round over here in Singapore, seven shots better than any other team, and that was a run that you have continued until this year. Can you put any finger to what you guys do well on Sundays?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Oh, man. It's probably a lot deeper than this, but I feel like I've got three other players that are just super consistent. They don't shoot crazy over par. They don't always go super deep, but they're very consistent, and they shoot under par quite a bit.
I'm kind of the semi-sporadic one. I can go super deep or be not too good. I think that's kind of what having a solid team means is you get some good consistent players and then you've got a couple that can shoot really low. It doesn't really throw you out of the picture, but I think the four scores counting has really helped us because we're a pretty consistent team and we always seem to shoot under par and get better as the tournament progresses. We get more comfortable with the course. We understand the greens better. We're more of a development team. Like we get better over the course of time I feel like. That's just their games in general. That's what Charles does really well, Paul does really well and Ban. We seem to understand the course better, and I think it's just because of our passion that we all have for wanting to play the best golf we possibly can, but consistency definitely plays a role with our team.
Q. Obviously LIV is into its third season now. What do you think is the future of LIV in the next five to ten years?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Wow. The future of LIV. We know it's going to be here, bigger, badder and better than ever before. It's just going to continue to keep growing over the next five to ten years.
Where I see it heading, I think there may be an opportunity for this to be just -- from an audience perspective even bigger. You're going to see a lot more interactions from teams. I think the competition between the teams will get heightened. The rivalries will get heightened. There's already some sort of rivalries going on right now, but as the years go on and people are going to win championships, that team championship at the end of the year last year like the Crushers did, I think there's going to be a lot of rivalries to be produced that you'll see, and it's stories to be told I think will be pretty insane over the next five to ten years.
PHIL MICKELSON: I think there's a lot of things that are going to transpire over the next five or ten years. I'm very bullish and excited about what that means for LIV Golf.
But there's also a lot of uncertainty. I think the things that I do know is I think the quality of the players will continue to get better each year. I think that the ability and the sites that we move throughout the world will continue to excite players and excite fans. We'll be going to more countries outside of the United States that really are starving for world-class professional golf, and we'll have a lot more receptions like we had at Adelaide.
With Singapore and the tourism department getting involved and loving the event that transpired last year and wanting us to come back, that seems to be the case right now where a lot of countries are negotiating and trying to get a LIV event there.
So I see the global game of golf growing at an extremely high level.
I think that's exciting for everyone involved in the game because we are going to reach markets that we didn't reach before. I think it's going to inspire more golf courses, inspire more manufacturers selling clubs and equipment, but also inspiring young kids to try to play golf professionally.
I just see that the game of golf is going to grow on a much more global basis because of the excitement and the presence that LIV Golf has.
Q. You saw the first LIV Golfer win a major last year, and for Bryson, you were a contender at Augusta. Both of you have experience winning majors, as well. What would it take to see a LIV Golfer win another major again?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: More great golf. I think us LIV Golfers are prepared as ever to play major championships. Allows us the opportunity to have a little bit more time every once in a while to get ready for those majors.
But I think we all have the firepower to play well and win a major championship. There's a lot of major champions over here that know how to get it done, so it's just a matter of time.
PHIL MICKELSON: Yeah, I think it's just inevitable. There's so many great players on this tour that they'll continue to win majors.
Q. Bryson, just given the week you had at Augusta, just wondering have you allowed yourself to change -- basically debate about 54 holes versus 72 holes? Do you think you'd rather play for 72 holes?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Whatever the competition is, the competition is. Whether it's six rounds of golf or whether it's one round of golf, you've still got to go out and hit the best shots you possibly can every single time. To me it doesn't matter. If you're the one that's going to hit the best shots out there and make the most putts, you're going to be the one to win. It doesn't matter if it's necessarily 54 or 72 or six days or one day.
I'm great with whatever.
Q. But isn't there merit for practice makes perfect, playing four rounds more regularly gives you a better shot at it?
BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: Everybody has an opinion on that. You certainly seem to have an opinion on four rounds as being better. For me, I came back with -- after COVID, I didn't play golf for a month and a half, two months, and I went out and almost won The Colonial, without any tournament golf. So that kind of hopefully answers that.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports