Once upon a time, Phil Mickelson seemed a lock to someday become an honorary starter at the Masters (circa 2040), and much more immediately, a Ryder Cup captain. Now, it's hard to say.
Mickelson is at a crossroads. It could continue down the path it has taken, aligning itself with an upstart golf league funded by the Saudi ruling class, about which nothing has been said publicly.
It ain't easy to do, when you've called that mouthful that wants to feed you "scary mama****ers". And when you don't know if the league is even going on.
Or Mickelson could leave his links to Greg Norman's LIV Golf Investments and his Saudi supporters and the World Golf Tour, and look to resume his big life on the PGA Tour, the Champions Tour (where it's hard to have a big life). Could try and become a living legend of the sport. Just nine months ago, Mickelson became the oldest golfer to win a major championship!
But holding back isn't Mickelson's style, his legal entanglements with LIV golf are probably more involved than we knew, and he's already scorched the earth—the majors, the PGA Tour, corporate America—where he has spent so long. Runs his business in time, and so effectively.
His mouth and his ambition, to say nothing of his talent and his work ethic, took him there in May, when he won the PGA at Kiawah in coastal South Carolina, and was marched on by fans until the 18th. . Green.
His mouth and his ambition led him to where he is now. Mickelson, who can be summed up with charm, who has all the best words, who has been intrigued by fans and journalists and corporate sponsors of golf for decades, is a restless personality. You can't think of anyone else like him in the history of golf. It's not really surprising to see the place he's in.
And if anyone has the skills to turn it around, it's Mickelson.
Time is not on his side. He would definitely like to play in the Players Championship next month. Masters in April. PGA in May
There's already a global superstar in golf who lives an essentially isolated, quiet private life: Tiger Woods. Mickelson has always been an opponent of Woods. But right now, Woods — with his temperate, well-intentioned comments about his allegiance to the world that made him — looks like golf's bigoted statesman. Those comments came in December at a tournament Woods hosts in the Bahamas, and last week in the Riviera, at the Genesis Invitational, in another Tiger Woods production.