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Phil Mickelson didn’t play in a professional golf tournament last week but he still suffered the biggest loss of his career and it’s one that will likely – and hopefully – stain his legacy for the rest of time.
And you know who he has to blame for that?
Himself.
In case you missed it, Mickelson outed himself as one of the biggest names in golf that was looking to join the Saudi Arabia-backed Super Golf League with little to no concerns about the human rights violations that have long been committed by the Saudi government, which would have big financial ties to the golf league.
Instead, he felt it was important to try to join forces with them and make a lot of money in the twilight years of his career. He even tried to play it off like he was doing something good and was just trying to put pressure on the PGA Tour to be better to the players.
Here’s the quote from Phil to longtime golf journalist Alan Shipnuck, now of the Fire Pit Collection, that sunk the legendary golfer:
“They’re scary motherf—–s to get involved with.. We know they killed [Washington Post reporter and U.S. resident Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates. They’ve [the PGA Tour] been able to get by with manipulative, coercive, strong-arm tactics because we, the players, had no recourse. As nice a guy as [PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan] comes across as, unless you have leverage, he won’t do what’s right. And the Saudi money has finally given us that leverage. I’m not sure I even want [the SGL] to succeed, but just the idea of it is allowing us to get things done with the [PGA] Tour.”
Wow, right?
That quote led to a number of other big-name golfers to publicly declare they were going to stick with the PGA Tour and ignore the Saudi Super League. It also also led to many players, including the great Rory McIlroy, to openly rip Mickelson for as, as McIlroy called it, being “selfish, egotistical, (and) ignorant.”
Mickelson finally made a statement on Tuesday and it was one of the worst apologies you’ll ever read. He played the victim in parts of it, didn’t really denounce the Saudi government, and said he’s going to take some time away to work on himself.
It was a gutless and shallow apology that will stick with him forever.
Moments after that statement was released one of his long-time sponsors, KPMG, dropped him as a client, which was huge and could lead to other sponsors parting ways with him.
All Mickelson had to do was stay quiet and things might have played out in the disgusting way in which he hoped they would.
Instead, he’s out millions of dollars, his reputation has taken an unbelievable hit, and many of his peers have let the world know how they feel about him.
Phil was everyone’s hero after he won the PGA Championship last year at the age of 51.
Now he’s a big, lonely zero and all of the blame, blame that he absolutely deserves, falls on himself.
Nice work, Lefty.
Quick hits: Aaron Rodgers talks about his Instagram post… Rodgers’ cleanse, explained… J.J. Watt’s gigantic hands… And more.
– Aaron Rodgers had the NFL world reading deeply into his late-night Instagram post Monday about his career and all the gratitude he felt. Well, yesterday he went on Pat McAfee’s show and explained himself.
– Speaking of Rodgers, he also talked about a 12-day cleanse he just completed and here’s an explainer of what that was about.
– NFL fans couldn’t believe how small a Gatorade can looked in J.J. Watt’s hand.
– J.J. Redick ripped Zion Williamson for being a “detached teammate.”