The battle lines keep getting drawn more clearly with each passing week – and let’s be clear that this is a fight for both the soul and the highest ground of elite professional golf. The rhetoric of this cold war between LIV Golf and the established tours grows increasingly more hostile and desperate.
Phil Mickelson, a World Golf Hall of Famer who has not been competitively relevant for a single week on any tour since his shocking victory at the 2021 PGA Championship, burned whatever unstable bridges that still might have existed this week from the bosom of his new professional home in Saudi Arabia.
“I see LIV Golf trending upwards. I see the PGA Tour trending downwards, and I love the side that I'm on,” Mickelson said at his press conference on Thursday ahead of the 48-man exhibition in Jeddah.
“For a long, long time, my 30 years on the PGA Tour, pretty much all the best players played on the PGA Tour. At least the last 20 years. That will never be the case again. I think going forward, you have to pick a side. You have to pick what side do you think is going to be successful.
“And I firmly believe that I'm on the winning side of how things are going to evolve and shape in the coming years for professional golf.”
Just four days earlier, Tom Kim of South Korea became the first player since Tiger Woods to win his second PGA Tour event before his 21st birthday – doing it at the same Las Vegas event where Woods won his first. The rising superstar, whose emotions and skill won the hearts and respect of golf fans at last month’s Presidents Cup, seems to have picked a side – for now.
“I’m having fun playing the PGA Tour,” Kim said after climbing to No. 15 in the world with his early success on what remains the undisputed best professional golf tour in the world. “It's awesome.”
These next months will not be an easy time in the golf eco-system. Elite golf is sitting in the eye of the LIV Golf storm, with no substantial movement since Cameron Smith, Joaquin Niemann and a few others made the jump immediately after the Tour Championship in August. When LIV launches its 14-event 2023 season in February, it promises to have more of a set 48-man roster with permanent teams. It’s fair to assume more prominent players will be lured by the easy riches of the Saudi Public Investment Fund by then to replace the weak filler currently at the bottom of the LIV table.
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