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Phil Mickelson is a fan favorite at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in Scottsdale, Ariz. But, after 30 appearances in The Greatest Show on Grass, Mickelson is opting to go elsewhere in early 2020.
Phil Mickelson is a fan favorite at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in Scottsdale, Ariz. But, after 30 appearances in The Greatest Show on Grass, Mickelson is opting to go elsewhere in early 2020.
The Saudi International runs up against the Waste Management Phoenix Open, and Phil Mickelson is the latest star to choose Saudi in 2020.
As the field deepens for the European Tour’s Saudi International, to be played for just the second time this January, it could be to the detriment of a staple event on the PGA Tour calendar. The Saudi tournament runs up against the Waste Management Phoenix Open in Scottsdale on Super Bowl weekend.
Phil Mickelson has been a familiar face at TPC Scottsdale, a venue known for its raucous crowds and the stadium atmosphere around the par-3 16th hole, and arguably one of the most popular players to repeatedly play the event. Mickelson, 49, has announced that he will play in Saudi instead in 2020, according to a Monday news story in the Saudi Gazette.
Already, Saudi International organizers have reportedly secured commitments from defending champion Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed, Henrik Stenson, Shane Lowry and Sergio Garcia (which is another story entirely). With Monday’s announcement, add not just Mickelson but also Tony Finau to that list.
In the run-up to last year’s inaugural Saudi event, players drew criticism for committing to play — and receiving appearance fees for it — in the wake of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.
“I am really looking forward to playing in Saudi Arabia in January,” Mickelson told the Saudi Gazette. “I watched Dustin win the title last year and thought the course looked like an interesting challenge. Having so many talented players on show also made it look like a much more established tournament than one in its inaugural year. I have enjoyed my previous visits to the Middle East and am looking forward to playing in a new country and doing my bit to grow the game in the Kingdom.”
Mickelson’s decision is at least a little bit surprising, considering that he is the face of the event. He missed the cut in his debut in 1989 but the 44-time winner on the PGA Tour has played every year since, except 1990, and has virtually rewritten its record book: He now holds or shares 15 tournament scoring records.
In 30 appearances, he has a record-tying three wins, 11 top-10 finishes and a record $4,198,677 in earnings, which is the most he has won at any event in the world. He has shot two rounds of 60, including one with a lip-out putt on the final hole that would have given him a 59, and has recorded 479 birdies or eagles.
Mickelson was a three-time NCAA champion at Arizona State, located about 18 miles south of TPC Scottsdale.
Mickelson’s career includes 10 European Tour victories, though never one in the Middle East. Finau, 30, has never played in the region and has also never won a European Tour event.
“I’ve always believed that to be considered a world-class player, you must compete in premier tournaments around the world,” Finau told the Saudi Gazette. “Playing in Saudi Arabia for the first time will be a great experience, and I’m looking forward to competing against what is already an exceptionally strong field, on what I have learned is a great golf course.”
The Saudi International will be played at Royal Green Golf and Country Club from Jan. 30-Feb. 2.
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Tiger Woods, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, and Lexi Thompson were all engulfed in some of the decade’s biggest Rules of Golf controversies.
There was no shortage of options for making this list.
Plenty of first-name only star power — Phil, Tiger, DJ and Lexi — were among the biggest offenders.
That’s because the Rules of Golf are complicated, and despite revisions and clarification and an overhaul that went into effect in 2019, there are still regular occurrences where the punishment doesn’t seem to fit the crime plus plenty of room for ambiguity.
Here are the 10 biggest Rules controversies that sparked debate in this decade:
In the final round, Haotong Li canned a birdie putt on the 18th hole to apparently finish in third place. But as ESPN’s Lee Corso would say, not so fast, my friends. Li’s caddie violated one of the new Rules of Golf that went into effect in 2019 – Rule 10.2b – “once the player begins taking a stance for the stroke, and until the stroke is made, the player’s caddie must not deliberately stand on or close to an extension of the line of play behind the ball for any reason.” The two-stroke change dropped Li to a tie for 12th place and cost him the equivalent of about $100,000.
As a result of this ruling and a similarly harsh interpretation of the Rule against Denny McCarthy at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February, a clarification was released addressing issues with the Rule. In short, it clarified what it meant to “deliberately” stand behind the player and provided more guidance for when a player actually has “begun taking his or her stance.”
Rory McIlroy hasn’t been afraid to speak his mind, and the Ryder Cup has provided plenty of drama in our top 10 story lines of the decade.
The European Tour hardly gets a break at all.
Last season ended Sunday at the DP World Tour Championship, Dubai, where Jon Rahm earned the $3 million first-place check for winning his second DP title, and a further $2 million bonus for finishing the season as No. 1 on the Race to Dubai.
The next season starts this week at the Alfred Dunhill Championship in South Africa, a mere four days later.
With not much time to catch our breath, Golfweek’s Alistair Tait takes a look back at the top 10 story lines on the European Tour in the last decade:
Sergio Garcia displayed a lack of etiquette during the 2019 Saudi International that left fellow competitors disgusted. Garcia willfully damaged several greens during his third round. Players behind complained and the Spaniard was disqualified. It was yet another poor breach of etiquette from the Spaniard, following throwing a shoe in anger during the 1999 World Match Play Championship and spitting into Doral’s 13th hole during the 2007 CA Championship.
In all, golfers have won more than $5.7 billion in career earnings, according to the PGA Tour.
The PGA Tour has 10 members of the $50 million club, 18 who have won at least $40 million in on-course earnings, 38 with $30 million or more, 77 who have earned at least $20 million and 189 who have surpassed the $10 million plateau.
In all, golfers have won more than $5.7 billion in career earnings, according to the PGA Tour.
Tiger Woods leads the way. He has topped the $120 million mark and is the only golfer with more than $100 million in career earnings.
Let’s take a closer look here at the top 20 of all-time.
Some of the names and numbers may surprise you.
Could 2020 represent a return to the tournament’s glory days when Bob Hope was the ringleader of one of the tour’s most popular events?
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PALM SPRINGS, Calif. – Could 2020 represent a new beginning for the PGA Tour’s event in La Quinta? Or could it represent a return to the tournament’s glory days when Bob Hope was the ringleader of one of the tour’s most popular events?
Either way, Phil Mickelson is convinced this is the right time for him to expand his role with the American Express golf tournament and the Coachella Valley.
“It’s always been an important part of my life. I would come out here and play junior tournaments here,” Mickelson said. “I’ve always been passionate about here, and I love the tournament itself. But more than that, this tournament has meant historically a lot to this area, and I want to bring back the vision of Bob Hope.”
The announcement that Mickelson will officially become the host of the tournament he won in 2002 and 2004 and where he finished second by a single shot last year was just part of activities Saturday at Madison Club in La Quinta, where Mickelson has a home. Much of the discussion Saturday centered around the addition of global financial company American Express as tournament sponsor and what the company can bring to the desert event.
“To partner with American Express, who has been involved with many other world-class sporting events throughout the world, and to have them see our vision and to help us bring it to prominence, is an important thing,” Mickelson said.
Other Saturday announcements included the tournament’s music series, which in 2020 will include two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Stevie Nicks and two-time country music Entertainer of the Year Luke Bryan. The event featuring 156 PGA Tour pros and 156 amateurs played over three courses in La Quinta will now have a $6.7 million purse, an increase of $800,000 from the 2019 tournament. The winner will take home $1,206,000.
“Obviously, American Express is a world-class global brand and brings nothing but the best to this event,” said Jeff Sanders, executive director for the tournament for Lagardere Sports, the company that operates the tournament for non-profit Desert Classic Charities. “So we are absolutely thrilled to have American Express as our title sponsor. Steve Squeri, the CEO, he is going to lead us into the future. He’s the CEO you want to have, believe me, behind a PGA Tour event.”
Mickelson, a World Golf Hall of Famer with five major wins and 44 PGA Tour victories overall, has been the tournament’s ambassador for the last three years, a behind-the-scenes role where he talked up the tournament to fellow PGA Tour players and corporate heads. But in 2020 he’ll take on the role of host, though he said exact details of what his duties will be in the event six weeks away are still being worked out.
“The last couple of years, we asked to give us a few years to really showcase what this tournament can do, and have needed and had the help of many people,” Mickelson said, specifically pointing to officials with Discovery Land, developer of Madison Club and other desert courses, and Lagardere Sports, which operates the tournament for non-profit Desert Classic Charities.
“Now we have the partner that we want to bring it to a whole other level,” Mickelson said, a reference to the new five-year sponsorship deal with American Express. “American Express asked that myself and my foundation take on a bigger role, the PGA Tour asked me to take on a bigger role. My wife and I, Amy, we’ve decided this is the right fit, and we want to have a more direct involvement with the charitable support and donation here in the valley.”
Mickelson and Sanders both made a point that all charitable proceeds from the event, which has given $60 million to local charities since 1960, will remain in the Coachella Valley.
“I know historically that hasn’t always been the case, but it is going to be the case going forward,” Mickelson said.
To improve the tournament, which has struggled at times in recent years with the depth of its professional field, Mickelson said getting the right people playing in the pro-am is a key. The pro-am format has two PGA Tour professionals playing with two different amateurs each of the three days of pro-am play.
“My role has been get the message out on why and how this tournament is the best place to start the year because we have perfect weather, which is why the courses are by the mountain,” Mickelson said. “So we don’t have wind, so that we give the players a chance to build a foundation for the upcoming year.
The second key element is making the tournament and the amateurs here (be) the CEOs that are decision-makers in the game of golf, that support the game of golf,” Mickelson added. “If you don’t have relationships with Corporate America, (the pro-am) it gives you a chance to formulate relationships. If you do, it gives you a chance to strengthen them. Because we will allow players to play with their partners.”
A CEO-laden pro-am would be a throwback to the event’s beginnings, when many of the nation’s corporate leaders had part-time homes in the Coachella Valley, played in the tournament and often struck endorsement deals with PGA Tour players as a result of playing together in the event.
Mickelson said he and his wife Amy are committed to becoming more a part of the Coachella Valley community, and that he would like to see the tournament return to the days when Hope was the host and the tournament held a special place on the PGA Tour schedule for players like five-time winner Arnold Palmer and other top names who won the event like Billy Casper, Johnny Miller and Jack Nicklaus.
“Our goal it to take the intention of Bob Hope 60 years ago and reignite that,” Mickelson said. “So the commitment to the community, the commitment to the charitable contributions, the commitment to the CEOs and (musical acts), and make it a unique experience. Because the celebrities give us a chance to expose golf to a lot of those who don’t normally play it.”
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This is a closer look at the golfers who have made more than $30 million in on-course career earnings in PGA Tour history.
The PGA Tour has 10 members of the $50 million club.
Following the WGC-HSBC Champions tournament in China, Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia each joined that exclusive membership.
Furthermore, there are 18 golfers who have won at least $40 million in on-course earnings, 38 golfers with $30 million or more, 77 who have earned at least $20 million and 189 who have surpassed the $10 million plateau.
In all, 643 golfers have won $5,728,260,700 in career earnings, according to the PGA Tour, through the 2019 WGC-HSBC Champions.
Tiger Woods leads the way, of course. He has topped the $120 million mark and is the only golfer with more than $100 million in career earnings.
Let’s take a closer look here at the top 38 of all-time.
These are the golfers who have surpassed $30 million in on-course earnings.
Some of the names and numbers may surprise you.
