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What: “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel”

Where: HBO, tonight, 10

Phil Mickelson finished 10 strokes back at the Byron Nelson Classic over the weekend. After two rounds, he had been only three strokes behind. He was either going to win or finish back in the pack.

Mickelson’s aggressive style has gotten him a lot of attention. Some say that aggressiveness is the reason he has never won a major.

Bryant Gumbel gets Mickelson to talk about it in one of the segments on this edition of “Real Sports,” and Mickelson says the criticism he gets is largely responsible for the way he plays.

“The type of individual I am, when somebody tells me to do something, I tend to go the other way,” Mickelson says. “So I actually think that ... some of the criticism that has taken place in the media about me being aggressive has forced me to be overly aggressive.

“I’m not going to give in to what somebody says. I may even try a shot that I wouldn’t have tried before, just to prove a point.”

Mickelson says he’s not trying to prove people wrong but rather to show that he enjoys playing his style of game.

“I’m at a point where I really don’t care about an eighth-place finish or a second-place finish,” he says. “I want to try to win. I’m going to take that extra step, that extra gamble, to try to separate myself from the field. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t.”

Another segment features Danny Andrews, an 800-meter runner on the University of Miami’s track team. He is the only amputee competing in Division I track and field. Mary Carillo reports this story.

Also, Derek McGinty examines safety issues in the pole vault. Three competitors have been killed in pole vaulting accidents in the last year.