If you’ve been following golf this past year, you know all about the LIV Tour and the how it’s impacted golf enthusiasts like me across the world. Unless you’ve been living under a rock this week, you probably also noticed that the PGA Tour succumbed to the money and ended up merging with the LIV Tour. A year ago from yesterday, my favorite golfer, Phil Mickelson, spoke for the first time publicly since vanishing from the limelight in what is now an iconic interview.
Phil Mickelson and His Exile to LIV Golf
The quote heard ’round the world is posted in the image below, and as it turns out, he was right about every point he made about the PGA Tour. Pretty much every news outlet is running with this story now, including Yahoo.
This instantly went down in the history of golf’s greatest rants. The proclamations made here were beyond accurate, in an almost nostradomus type accuracy. While the merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf still has some hurdles to clear with the legal beagles, the leverage the golfers got have single-handedly changed the landscape of the PGA Tour as we know it. Golf, as we knew it, has totally changed for the better. Everything from higher purses, team play, and even events without cuts, are all on the table.
Phil’s quotes about PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan were spot on, as evidenced in how he treated his number one ally, golfer Rory McIlroy, who became a “sacrificial lamb” along the way.
Always someone who prides himself as being right, Mickelson has the right to celebrate his iconic quotes. The PGA Tour has compromised morality and decided to take the money and run after a full year of bashing the integrity of the LIV Golf Tour and anyone who joined or supported them.
Some fans have claimed they are finished supporting golf, much like many of them said when they bashed anyone who went on to take the money to join the Liv Tour.
Just this Spring, when fans at home were on the edge of their seat waiting to see how LIV Tour golfers would be treated at the Masters, they witnessed a majestic run by Mickelson to finish second place. Rather than hide from the moment, Mickelson flashed a huge smile and shook hands with past Masters winners like there wasn’t an elephant in the room.
Having won the Masters three times himself, he was said to be quiet at the Champions Dinner, something much different than in the past where he lit up the room with his persona. But after playing an incredible tournament, all the weirdness subsided.
Phil had his moment in the sun, in front of everyone who bad-mouthed him.
And guess what?
He will continue to do that because he is none other than the legend, Phil “Lefty” Mickelson.