Reigning PGA Championship winner Phil Mickelson, who hasn’t carried out competitively in further than three months, won’t defend his title subsequent week at Southern Hills Nation Membership in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The PGA of America launched Friday that Mickelson has withdrawn from the PGA Championship.
“We now have merely been educated that Phil Mickelson has withdrawn from the PGA Championship,” the assertion talked about. “Phil is the defending champion and in the mean time eligible to be a PGA Life Member and we might have welcomed him to participate. We wish Phil and [wife] Amy the right and look forward to his return to golf.”
Tiger Woods, within the meantime, remained throughout the self-discipline and is scheduled to fulfill the media at Southern Hills on Tuesday. Woods closing carried out throughout the Masters, when he returned competitively for the first time since his February 2021 automotive wreck.
Ultimate month, Mickelson, a six-time principal champion, skipped the Masters, an event he has gained thrice, for the first time since 1994.
Mickelson grew to change into golf’s oldest principal champion by worthwhile the PGA at Kiawah Island in South Carolina at age 50 closing 12 months. He hasn’t carried out on the PGA Tour since missing the decrease on the Farmers Insurance coverage protection Open at Torrey Pines in late January.
Mickelson is taking time away from golf after his controversial suggestions in regards to the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabian financiers of a breakaway circuit had been printed by author Alan Shipnuck, whose unauthorized biography of the golfer popularly generally called “Lefty” will in all probability be launched subsequent week.
Mickelson criticized the PGA Tour for its “greed” and talked about he was attempting earlier the Saudi Arabian monarchy’s alleged human rights violations to attain leverage with the tour.
“They’re scary motherf—ers to change into concerned with,” Mickelson instructed Shipnuck all through a dialog in November. “They killed [Washington Post reporter and U.S. resident Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible report on human rights. They execute of us over there for being gay. Determining all of this, why would I even ponder it? On account of it’s a once-in-a-lifetime various to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.”
Mickelson later apologized for his suggestions.
Longtime sponsors Amstel Light, KPMG and Workday ended their relationships with him. Callaway, which in 2017 signed Mickelson to a contract by way of the tip of his participating in career, paused its relationship with him.
PGA Tour skilled Charley Hoffman, who moreover grew up in San Diego and is one amongst Mickelson’s closest mates, instructed ESPN on Wednesday that he may be shocked if Mickelson carried out at Southern Hills.
“I imagine mentally Phil is likely to be in an excellent space correct now, to be reliable with you,” Hoffman talked about. “I’d not be shocked if he didn’t play. I have no idea if he wants to deal with [the media]. He’s achieved it his full life. I imagine he has adequate respect for the game that he’ll play, nevertheless it will not shock me if he didn’t. I don’t suppose he wants to deal with it.”
According to ESPN Stats & Information, Mickelson is solely the fourth golfer throughout the closing 50 years to not attempt to defend his title at a big the following 12 months. Rory McIlroy was the ultimate one in 2015, when he missed The Open after injuring his ankle whereas participating in soccer shortly sooner than the occasion. Woods missed the 2008 PGA Championship, after worthwhile it in 2006 and 2007, as he was nonetheless recovering from knee surgical process. Payne Stewart, the 1999 U.S. Open champion, was killed in a airplane accident in October 1999.
Woods, a 15-time principal champion, returns to Southern Hills near the fifteenth anniversary of his third PGA Championship victory. The ultimate time he gained the event, he was 6 pictures off the lead after the first spherical nevertheless fired a 7-under 63 throughout the second to tie what was then the underside single-round score at a males’s principal and the course report.
Ultimate month, Woods accomplished forty seventh on the Masters, his first official tour event in 14 months. He made the decrease nevertheless shot 6-over 78 in each of the ultimate two rounds, his worst scores at Augusta Nationwide.
