Phil Mickelson–three time winner of the Masters, winner of three other majors, and longtime fan favorite on the PGA Tour–will not play in the Masters this year, which begins April 7, because his reputation took a huge hit recently. It has caused him to hide out from the public for a while. The last time Phil Mickelson did not compete in the Masters was 1994. Lefty certainly is eligible even though he is 51 years old since he became the oldest winner of a major last year, and that by four years.
Phil’s Masters absence is going to be about a new Super Golf League orchestrated by former superstar PGA Tour player Greg Norman as CEO of LIV International and financially backed by the Public Investment Fund, which is the sovereign wealth fund of the government of Saudi Arabia.
The de facto Saudi king, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has been ruthless regarding human rights. Our CIA determined that he made the decision to have world-class journalist Jamal Khashoggi assassinated and his body grotesquely dismembered in Turkey. Khashoggi was Saudi-born and, as a dissident critic of the Saudi regime, was living in Washington DC as a Washington Post columnist. He had both Saudi and U.S. citizenship when he was about to marry an Egyptain woman and live in Washington. But the Saudi government directed him to get a marriage license at the Saudi embassy in Ankara, Turkey. That was a foil that seems to have been engineered by Salman as about a dozen of his henchmen ended Khashoggi’s life right there in the embassy and the body was never discovered.
Prince Salman has been trying to rehabilitate his reputation ever since. One of the ways he is doing it is with what’s called “sportwashing.” The Saudi International golf tournament was held last month in Saudi Arabia as an Asian Tour event. It had been on the more prestigious European Tour, which is second to America’s PGA Tour as the best in the land. But after the Khashoggi assassination, the European Tour refused to stage the very lucrative event anymore. Nevertheless, several of the top PGA Tour pros still compete in it, such as last month, including Phil Mickelson.
Golf writer Alan Shipnuck has written an unauthorized biography about Phil Mickelson entitled Phil that was just published. Shipnuck had several interviews with Mickelson, though there is disagreement between them if any of Mickelson’s statements were mutually agreed upon as “off the record.”
Shipnuck says Mickelson admitted that he and Greg Norman funded legal expenses to have incorporation documents drawn up for the Super Golf League. Shipnuck quotes Phil as saying of Saudi rulers, “They’re scary motherf—— to get involved with. We know they killed [Khashoggi] and have a horrible record on human rights.” Phil then explained that he was involved in creating this new golf tour to apply pressure to the PGA Tour to change some things to his liking. Phil accused the PGA Tour of “obnoxious greed.” That’s not only biting the hand that fed you but sounds like Phil was speaking of himself. Although my day is long gone from the Tour, and I don’t know Commissioner Monahan, I suspect Phil was speaking myopically and thus selfishly.
Shipnuck also quotes Mickelson has saying of the PGA Tour leadership, “They’ve been able to get by with manipulative, coercive, strong-arm tactics because we, the players, had no recourse. As nice 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.” Shipnuck published these remarks prior to his book release. Mickelson then issued an apologetic statement about this, though it has not been well accepted by his critics.
Wrong, Phil! As I have blogged before, the PGA Tour commissioner is hired by the Tournament Policy Board, which runs the Tour. It consists of four PGA Tour members and some very successful businessmen usually involved with pro golf. All are voted on by the PGA Tour membership. The businessmen listen to the Tour’s members, especially the four Tour members on the Board.
So, Phil is not right about that leverage. Rather, he is speaking from his own perspective as one of the two greatest pro golfers in the world, along with Tiger Woods, in the past thirty years; whereas, the Tournament Policy Board operates for the entire PGA Tour membership and for the declared purpose of growing the game of golf. Many times, the specific interests of elite superstars on the PGA Tour conflict with the interests of the PGA Tour’s entire membership. There is nothing unique about this, since it is also happens in other professional sports.
I want to say to Phil Mickelson, “If Commissioner Jay Monahan ‘won’t do what’s right,’ as you say, he will be out looking for another job. But it all depends on what your definition is about ‘what’s right.’ What’s right for Phil Mickelson may not be what’s right for the entire PGA Tour and the betterment of the game.”
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