Phil Mickelson wants success at next month's Barclays Singapore Open. 'Lefty' recently took time out to speak to reporters.

Q: Forty-one wins for you worldwide so far, how important is it for you to win in Singapore?

It is a tournament that I would very much like to win because I want to start playing more and winning more internationally. The Barclays Singapore Open is one of the biggest tournaments on a worldwide basis and certainly it is one of the largest events in Asia. It would really mean a lot to me to break through and win it.

Q: You played in Singapore last year, what did you learn that you might be able to bring this year?

I learned a lot actually after having played the golf course, and one of the things that I have done to get ready for this tournament specifically is because the greens are a little heavier than I'm used to so. I had Callaway make me a putter with slightly more loft which will help get up on top of the green easier without having to adjust ball position, so I've added about a degree and a half of loft to one of my putters that I will use specifically for the Barclays Singapore Open.

Q: What have you been up to since the end of the Fedex? Have you relaxing a bit, playing at all, and practicing?

Last week my wife and I took a vacation down to South America. I hadn't spent too much time down there and we went down to Cusco, Peru and went to a town called Machu Picchu which is the city built high up in the mountains by the Inca Indians. From there we went to Buenos Aires and vacationed a little bit more. This past week I've been working on my golf game. I spent time up at the Callaway test centre today working on it as well so we're trying to get everything dialed in for the last half of this year and be ready for the 2009 season as well.

Q: A couple of victories this year, seven or eight top-10s. Would you class this season as a successful year, solid or disappointing?

Certainly I always try to look for the positives in each year. I think the positive for me was that out of the 22 events I've played on the US PGA Tour, I was in the top 25 for 19 of them. I didn't have the opportunities to win as many as I would have liked to and I didn't have the chances in the Majors, so looking back on this year and where it was in my game that didn't allow me to move from the top 25 into the victories, I've identified it basically being my putting.

As I looked at my putting I was trying to figure out what it was about that that had been off all year and it was my alignment because when I did a lot of work with our computers, the putting stroke was actually fine, the face was returning back to square but the face wasn't square starting out, it was slightly open and it explained a lot as to why I was missing the putts to the left, which for me is a block. So I've been working on that, trying to train my eyes to see it properly, to line up properly.

Having done that, my putting seems to have gotten a lot better. The two weeks that I really felt the stint on it was the Ryder Cup where I putted very well and the Tour Championship where I had my best putting week of the year. So I am hoping that if I can putt well at the Barclays Singapore Open, I'll have an opportunity to win.

Q: You met him at the Ryder Cup, I must ask you for an assessment of Anthony Kim who you played with. He's obviously had an amazing year, maybe after that, your thoughts on the Race to Dubai? I read a few things suggesting that you might be playing a bit in Europe next and aiming to get to Dubai. Can you maybe fill us in on your thoughts on that? Will the huge prize money act as an incentive to the US players, how do you feel and how do you think some of the PGA Tour players feel?

I think that Anthony Kim is an amazing talent in the game. I think he's going to one of our top players for a long time. I think he's going to be a steady young player like we see Adam Scott and Sergio Garcia. We see these good young players play steadily and in the top 10 then continue to get better. I think Anthony Kim will continually be in top 10 for many years on and each year he'll get better and better and keep moving up. He has no weaknesses in his game and he has a lot of guts. He really knows how to close it out, how to play tough, he's a tough competitor and I really think a lot of him in his game and I certainly enjoyed being his partner at the Ryder Cup.

I think Dubai is staging one of the giant leaps to making the game of golf more global on the quality of events. There have been a number of contributing factors that have made international golf much more attractive. Certainly the dollar weakening over the past few years has made the foreign currencies much stronger, making the purses much larger. Also there's been a lot of international wealth being created and the US golf industry has been stagnant for quite some time so all of our growth has been occurring on a global basis.

As a professional golfer, we have to adapt to that and that means playing more internationally because that's where all the opportunities are and that's where it will continue to grow and so I look forward to having opportunities to play more internationally and I understand that that's going to be an important part of being a professional golfer.

Q: There's been talk that the Barclays Singapore Open will become a European Tour event next year. How does that fit in do you think?

It will be very helpful for me. I love playing in Singapore. Singapore is one of the most impressive countries I've ever been to. To see what this country has done having no natural resources but just through hard work and dedication and great leadership, it's become a real presence internationally. It's one of the most amazing countries to me and because of that I like playing it and because of Barclays' involvement I like playing this event. If it were to become a European Tour event, it would be great for me because it would be able to be included as one of the now 12 events that are needed to be a European Tour member which although I haven't joined, is certainly something I'm considering.

Q: You go to Shanghai before coming to Singapore, to defend your title there. Talk a little bit about that, how important is it as a golfer to defend a title? Have you done that very often successfully?

I've been able to fortunately do it a few times but I have not had a chance to do it internationally very often. Winning in Shanghai last year was a very big win to me because it was one of my biggest international victories and also gave me a lot more exposure into China and into many of the Asian markets so I very much enjoy playing well and it meant a lot for me to win in Asia last year that's why again I'm focusing in on these events and hopefully going to play my best.

I think that it's no different than showing up at a tournament and trying to win for the first time because you want to win every event but having already won at a tournament site makes winning a lot easier because you have a lot of positive memories, you know the golf course and you've played it successfully in the past.

Q: You've been known to switch or experiment with different golf club configurations, going to the Barclays Singapore Open, what have you got in your bag?

I do enjoy trying to improve my equipment. I haven't changed my irons at all, I really enjoy the heads that I have, these smaller muscle backs and it really gives me a lower, more penetrative ball flight. The only change right now is I have a different three wood which hits the ball a little bit higher and softer to some of the greens that I felt were some of the three wood holes for example number one and number three at Sentosa.

So I felt like having a three wood that would come in a little bit higher and softer there were a number of tee shots that I wanted to hit three woods there so I have a three wood that really like with a slight variation to what I have. I've been spending some time with some of our new drivers. We have the new IQ and the new FT9 so both of them I've been spending a little bit of time with but the FT9 won't be on the USG approved list until middle of November so I will be using my FT5 that I've used all year.

Q: Will your family be accompanying you again on this trip this year?

Absolutely. We're really excited to be going back. I'm going to be doing an outing on Monday in Beijing. My wife is going to take the family about an hour an a half flight away to see the Terracotta Army and it's an amazing experience and I'm jealous that I'm not going to be able to go there but it's important that my kids take advantage of this opportunity so they are going to be seeing that in China. We had such a fun time in Singapore last year. We went to the night zoo and had some great experiences throughout and some wonderful pictures with some chimpanzees and we really enjoyed our time so they're definitely coming back and they're looking forward to it.

Q: Since Tiger's been off the Tour, have you noticed any reduction in crowds or tv audience figures have dropped? Has there been an impact of Tiger not being around do you think?

Well of course there's going to be an impact, that's obvious how impactful he has been so missing him has certainly hurt the latter part of this year. But it's also given a number of players the opportunity to kind of showcase their talent as well. We're all looking forward to Tiger getting back hopefully he'll be able to play at his own event here in December although I don't know his time schedule to get back but I think it's been an exciting time for him too because they are expecting another child. So still a lot of good has come from his lay-off. The world of golf has certainly missed him though.

Q: You are now ranked second behind Tiger and it's your best chance to make up ground on him, do you you've been able to take advantage of it? Are you disappointed that you weren't able to close the gap?

Well I'm disappointed I didn't play the last half of the year as well as I would have liked, in the majors specifically, but it's still been a fine year and I still have seen some areas of improvement and I still see areas where I can improve. The next couple of weeks will be important weeks as far as world ranking because we have so many top players that are playing; there should be a number of world ranking points and the opportunity for guys to win to be able to move up the world ranking.

Q: How do you find it when you see Vijay, who is now well into his 40s, coming out playing as well as he does, winning the Fedex, stuff like that? Does that inspire you? Does that make you think that you've still got many years ahead to really challenge in the majors?

I think it's very inspirational. I think it's inspirational for a lot of players in their 30s and 40s to see what he's done and certainly it's been through a lot of hard work the way he's worked as hard on his body as his golf game and it's been very impressive. But with his success, many players are given a new found belief that they can succeed and have their best years of their career well into his 40s.

Q: You've played at the Barclays Singapore Open before last year, what do you think went wrong for you? What is your strategy going into this year because the course has actually changed quite a bit.

I think from what I've understood, the course changes have been tremendous and should make the golf course even more enjoyable than it has been in the past but it was still a wonderful course last year. I'm looking forward to getting on the putting greens because the greens were where the tournament seems to be won and lost. They're very difficult, they're very challenging, there's a lot of long putts, there's a lot of green on the greens. And again I've made one adjustment in my equipment to try and combat that by adding a little loft to the putter but I also need to get dialed into the speed if I want to make a lot of putts so to me that will be the biggest test and the one challenge that I need to overcome if I want to contend and hopefully win on Sunday.

Q: This week we have Retief Goosen, US Open Winner, playing in Johor, and Anthony Kim has come over to Asia to play as well. Last year and this year, we have the privilege of you coming here to play, all these top players are playing Asia and all around the world. How important is it for golf in general that the world's best golfers make the effort to travel the globe to play in tournaments far from their home.

I think it's an important part for the growth of the game because the growth has to occur internationally, the United States market has been stagnant for some time now and so the more opportunities that we can have where top players play throughout the world and expose this part of the world to the game at the highest level, I think will help grow the game. That's an important part for what we do. The Fedex Cup having ended the PGA Tour season in September has given us three months now for many of the top players to play more internationally and I think that the whole game of golf has won.

Q: What drives you? Surely it's not the prize money anymore, being number one in the world, does that drive you?

Well certainly that drives all of us, that's our goal. We have a very difficult challenge because we're competing against arguably the greatest player of all time but it's also a fun challenge. It's been a fun challenge for me although I haven't been as successful as I would like. When I am successful, when I do win major championships, it makes it feel that much more fulfilling I guess.

Q: Obviously it's been an amazing few months for Padraig Harrington, you will be lining up against him in Singapore. Can you maybe just talk about Padraig as a person and as someone you've gotten to know over the years?

Padraig Harrington is one of the most quality individuals that I've ever. I have more respect for him than just about anybody. He's a tremendously talented golfer but he's also one of the best people in the game and I'm a big fan of his. I like and respect him a lot and I'm very happy for his success.

Q: Recently we've heard another legend, Lance Armstrong, looking into getting into politics after his career in professional cycling. How do you feel about what you are going to do after your career as a professional golfer?

Certainly I need to keep in mind some of the areas I would like to get into outside of golf but being 38 and given the success that Vijay Singh has had, well into their 40s, I feel like it's quite a distance away and not really something I want to focus on.