Q. Mark Mulder, three-time championship at the American Century Championship. Playing in his 15th year. Now you've got your son playing in a tournament in Reno at the same time, concurrently, and he's in second place. How does that feel, Dad?
MARK MULDER: It's tough. It's tough not being there. He hasn't won in AJGA yet. So there's a part of me that wants him to win but selfishly doesn't want him to win because I want to be there when he does the first time, that kind of stuff. But my wife is there. He'll be back there tonight and caddie for me the next three days.
Q. Zander was one of the little ones that used to sprint out to 18 after you won to hug dad. Some great memories there.
MARK MULDER: It's amazing how things change, because my kids used to think this tournament, I've said this before, my kids, when they were little, they thought this tournament was the one where they got to run out on the green at the end. As they've gotten older they haven't got to run out on the green anymore. Every year I come here, I try to fix that and try to make that happen one more time.
Q. What is it this year that you feel different about it? Do you feel better about your game or had more time to work on it?
MARK MULDER: I can't say I feel any better. It's one of those years that I won, I came in here playing terrible. Some years you come in playing well. And I just think it all comes to -- the course plays short for a bunch of us. To me it becomes a putting contest. It goes back to the whole scoring system. 18 pars is 18 points and nine bogeys, nine birdies is 27 points. You can shoot the same score but you've got to make putts. You've got to make birdies or maybe even eagles, as we saw with Steph last year, because last year he had a third of his points were just on four holes. That's the thing. It's crazy how many points you can accumulate if you make some of those eagles or, well, not hole-in-ones, but eagles at least.
Q. Annika said she's a grinder out here and gets a lot of greens and whatnot but she goes, hey, it rewards the guys that can take chances and make a lot of birdies versus the grinders. Obviously you agree with that.
MARK MULDER: Yeah, because if you're not hitting it close, these greens are hard. You're not rolling in 30-footer after 30-footer. You're just not going to with the po greens, they're tough. And you know with the sun being out and as warm as it is right now, they're kind of soft and receptive right now, but each day they're going to get firmer and faster.
Q. Looking at crowd so far, galleries, it's crazy. I mean it really is. And tomorrow, Friday, Saturday, are both sold out. Have you noticed bigger crowds on Wednesday and Thursday?
MARK MULDER: I feel like every -- Wednesday -- Thursday especially, over the years, hole 7, a few of these have kind of blown up. There's a few odd ones where all of a sudden you show up and there's just three, 400 people, it's like what's going on.
But the Pro-Am days my first couple of years, it really wasn't too many people out here. But then Wednesday and Thursday it's starting to get a little crazier. This weekend, obviously it will be on its own.
Q. The Caesar's Sportsbook has you listed at 6-to-1, do you agree with them?
MARK MULDER: I always like to agree with them other than it was 3-to-2 back after I won a few. No, I always like those odds. I don't want to come in here as the favorite. I like right where I am right now.
Q. Mardy was saying earlier, because we were teasing him a little bit, that everybody was talking about him, prohibitive favorite, prohibitive favorite. Mardy, he goes those guys are just trying to get in my head.
MARK MULDER: You know what, it is funny. Obviously Mardy is an unbelievable player. And the majority of the years, even though it's crazy that he has only won this once, and it was the COVID year when there was no one here. Not that that means anything. But he went crazy low that year. He blew us all out of the water. I've always said to people, he generally hits it better than most of us.
He's probably the best ball striker, I think, of all of us. But like we said, it comes down to putting. And there's some years where all of our games are off, including him, and that's the way it goes.
Q. Romo, how are you -- he's struggled a little bit. He said he's feeling a lot better about his game.
MARK MULDER: I haven't even seen him yet. I know I'm paired with him tomorrow. It's me, D. Lowe and him. I'll see him up close and personal tomorrow. Saw him in Dallas not that long ago for a little bit. I think his game was okay.
That's the thing, our games are very up-and-down for all of us, and I get it. We talked about how good some of these guys are. But we all have some very rough patches because this isn't something we necessarily do for a living.
Q. Thinking about what's been going on this week and the tributes to Tim Wakefield and whatnot, you knew Tim pretty well, didn't you?
MARK MULDER: I've been paired with him a bunch.
Q. A tough week. How do you think guys are dealing with it?
MARK MULDER: I think for the most part, I think guys are doing okay. The hard thing is -- it chokes me up almost every time because I sat with him in Edgewood last year in the lobby and there were some storms on the East Coast that Stacy and his daughter, Bri, were trying to get out here. They were having nothing but canceled flights. With everything that Stacy was going through, to be perfectly honest, Tim didn't care about him, he just cared about her.
There was a time when he looks over at me and he had his text, the font on his phone was huge, and he goes what's that say? And I jokingly said to him, you can't see that? He's like, no.
And then a month or so later he starts to lose his vision, which causes him to go see the doctor. And I think back to that, but that's him. Everything was about his wife and his family and not him.
So while he was probably experiencing some symptoms that maybe could have helped sooner, they didn't because it wasn't about him. It just breaks my heart, especially for Bri, because I was paired with Tim when she caddied with him numerous times and now my son's caddying for me, and it was hard.
When we first found out, I remember Millar and D. Lowe, I texted the two of them and I just said something along the lines that this can't possibly be true, when I first heard the news about Wake.
But what Bri has to go through -- and I saw her three months ago, I believe, in Dallas, Orlando, in January, we saw her and she's doing good, but, man, I can't imagine 18 years old and losing both your parents as fast as she did. It's just awful.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports