This statement by Mickelson pretty much sums up what I dislike about the general mentality of tour players.
The comment sounds insightful, especially coming from one of golf's best players, and the media treats it as such, but it's conclusion is so obvious that any half brained ninny could have arrived at the same conclusion even if he was not a golfer. Greens prepares identically will perform differently depending on their locations. Duh.
This "insight" was (is) the argument against the stimpmeter. The argument goes that it is the players responsibility to know how to read and react to green conditions. Let me tell a brief story to illustrate.
Former USGA President Bill Campbell introduced the stimpmeter to a greenkeeper at a course he played in Scotland. Campbell told the man that with this device, he could manage the greens so that thay rolled a consistant speed, one green to the next. The man replied, "why on earth, Mr. Campbell, would anyone want to do that?"
We seem to be in a period of time in the game where we are trying to take uncertainty out of this great enterprise. An example of this is the proliferation of the use of preferred lies. Under the guise of "fairness," i.e., one might get mud glopped onto his ball in wet conditions which might causer the next shot to veer off line, we also get to lift out ball out of divots, from behind trees, or even from the rough into the fairway. This effort, though not organized, is driven by the tour and attitudes of tour players, exemplified by Mickelson's quotation.
Golf is a game where one hits a ball with a stick across uncertain ground and in uncertain conditions, with a certain result. That seems to me to be the very root of what we do and why we do it. Lose that, and we lose the soul of our game.