Phil Mickelson Says the PGA Tour Has “Obnoxious Greed”

Phil Mickelson is second only to Tiger Woods among superstars on the PGA Tour in this century. Phil has won 45 PGA Tour tournaments, six of which have been majors. And Phil generally is a fan favorite. He gives good interviews at tournaments by sharing himself quite extensively. I would think that Phil Mickelson’s financial net worth would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

But right now, in my opinion and it seems that of most of the players on the PGA Tour, Phil Mickelson is talking arrogantly. I’d say also he is making a dunce out of himself.

Last Saturday, I blogged about the hot topic in pro golf right now with the post, “Super Golf League vs. PGA Tour.” (I wrongly called it “Saudi Golf League” because the government of Saudi Arabia is the financial resource for this proposed, new pro golf tour.) Last week, Phil Mickelson highly criticized the PGA Tour in his rather favorable comments about this proposed Super Golf League to be financially sponsored by the Saudi Arabian government and promoted by retired superstar PGA Tour player Greg Norman from Australia who has lived in the U.S. throughout his PGA Tour career.

(Incidentally, Saudi Arabia is trying to improve its public relations worldwide right now due in part to the murder of journalist Khashoggi, Saudi and U.S. citizen, by doing such things as creating high profile sporting events.)

Last week, Phil in an interview accused the PGA Tour of committing “obnoxious greed.” He said it in the context of a gripe Phil verbalized about the Tour requiring him to pay it a million dollars for the use of media/film rights to a non-PGA Tour golf event that Phil played sometime ago. He did not say how much he was paid to participate in the event, but it likely would have been multiple millions.

The PGA Tour has provided Phil Mickelson the platform for him to make a whole lot of money and achieve much notoriety in his professional golf career that he would not have been able to achieve otherwise at all. So for me, for Mickelson to call the PGA Tour guilty of “obnoxious greed” is ludicrous. And his further and more lengthy statement about it published today just made him look even worse. He said that because of this supposed threat of a super tour to the PGA Tour, “this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.”

I don’t know how much Phil Mickelson has actually been involved in his career in the operation of the PGA Tour. I don’t think he has ever served on the Tournament Policy Board, which includes four Player Directors. The Board sets policy, and the Tour’s hired commissioner implements it. There are always players meetings during the year in which players can voice their opinions. But what happens is that the very top players, like Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson, never serve on the Board. And they may not show up at the player meetings. That’s how it was in my day.

So, Phil’s gripe about the PGA Tour being “greedy” is a gripe against the players themselves, because THE PLAYERS ARE THE PGA TOUR. So, for Phil to talk that way, to me he makes himself not only look greedy but a complete DUNCE. Phil, who do you think decided that policy about making you cough up a million dollars for those media rights to that outing? It’s the Tournament Policy Board, with four of its members being players, who would have had to decide that. And what is the average net worth of all the members of the PGA Tour, Phil? I’ll bet you’re worth a whole lot more than the average.