Thoughts from St Albans, England, Wednesday, 8 June 2022, the day before the first of the LIV Golf Invitational Series got underway at Centurion Club here:
Being required to park in a field, one that might otherwise be used for growing turnips, is not unusual for a journalist attending a golf event. At a tournament in Sweden, I was directed into a pasture that heavy rain subsequently turned into a bog, and it took three days for my car to be hauled out. Seeing a row of black London taxis lined up to take golfers to their tees for a shotgun start on pro-am day is a first, however. An electric drinks provider moving silently around a room full of working journalists? That was a first, too, as was the monitoring of journalists’ questions by Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush’s former White House press secretary.
Even so, one man dominated the proceedings. Phil Mickelson often has been the centre of attraction, and he certainly was this day as he was questioned for the first time about his relationship with the PGA Tour, his peers, his involvement with LIV Golf and the moral issues connected with its eye-wateringly wealthy Saudi Arabian backers and their human-rights policies. It was a press conference, but it could have been a stage performance. It was pure theatre, electric.
Mickelson was flanked by T.K. Chantananuwat, Justin Harding and Chase Koepka, who also were competing, but eyes rarely left Mickelson. He was dressed in black without a logo in sight, save for a rendering of himself arms upraised on the front of his cap, and lightly-shaven. Throughout he looked as if he were facing a curling downhill 5-foot putt on a green with a Stimpmeter reading of 13.5.
In short, Mickelson, controversy and drama are rarely separated.
The mind went back to the Sunday evening of the 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles after Europe defeated the U.S. for the third time in a row and the vanquished team, with captain Tom Watson in the centre, sat on a dais to be questioned about its performance. Mickelson was singled out from among his teammates and invited to give his reasons for another defeat. It took him three or four minutes to outline them, and being there was like watching a dissection of a person – Watson, in this case. Whether Mickelson was right in what he said and whether he should have said it are irrelevant. It is, as they say in police circles, on his record.
As is the performance of Mickelson and Tiger Woods on the opening day of the 2004 Ryder Cup held at Oakland Hills. Their pairing was, captain Hal Sutton said, one of shock and awe. Even though the two men lost in the morning four-balls, Sutton sent them out together again in the afternoon foursomes. “I thought they wouldn’t dare lose,” Sutton said. They did.
As is Mickelson’s wild drive on the 72nd hole of the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, a stroke that might not have cost him the title had it not been followed by several more wild strokes.
As is Mickelson’s remarkable 6-iron recovery stroke from amidst a grove of trees on the 13th hole at Augusta in 2010 when he won his third Masters since 2004.
And as is his victory in the 2021 PGA Championship one month before his 51st birthday.
He is a man who has been in many a tight corner. You could not say his performance at St Albans was a mea culpa, like Tiger Woods’ at PGA Tour headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, in 2010 when Woods was shaking, sweating and visibly nervous. Mickelson looked composed and in control. It may have been stressful, but you never would have known it.
If Mickelson thought a question was too complicated, he simply asked for it to be repeated. If a questioner tried to ask two questions simultaneously, he insisted on them being asked one at a time. Seldom have pauses been used to such effect, and rarely has Mickelson been so brief. It was a masterclass in how to hold an audience.
He denied that joining LIV was “all about money,” saying it would give him a better balance to his life on and off the golf course. He declined to say whether he had been banned by the PGA Tour.
Mickelson apologised, though some were unsure as to what he was apologising for. “I do not condone human-rights violations at all,” he said. “I’m certainly aware of what has happened with (slain journalist) Jamal Khashoggi, and I think it’s terrible … but again I love this game of golf. I’ve seen the good that it’s done, and I see the opportunity for LIV Golf to do a lot of good for the game throughout the world, and I’m excited to be part of this opportunity.”
He denied that joining LIV was “all about money,” saying it would give him a better balance to his life on and off the golf course. He declined to say whether he had been banned by the PGA Tour. He said he intended to play in this week’s U.S. Open, and he said he hoped to be able to remain a member of the PGA Tour. (Unlike Dustin Johnson and Sergio Garcia, among others, Mickelson has not resigned from the PGA Tour.) “I’ve worked really hard to contribute and try to build and add value to the tour during my lifetime there, and I worked really hard to earn a lifetime exemption and I don’t want to give that up. I don’t believe I should have to. I don’t know what that means for the future, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
It was striking that he didn’t seem at all chastened by having had to take a leave of absence, whether it was his choice or a suspension. Rather the opposite, in fact. He said in his time away from golf he’d had “an awesome time.” He skied, spent time with his family, “…went to a couple of my nephew’s little league games” and to “…my nieces’ lacrosse game. I haven’t had a chance to do that,” he said.
It was quite a performance. His questioners were left unsatisfied by many of his answers. His backers felt he had walked through fire without receiving too many burns. And he himself went off to begin his round in the day’s pro-am probably thinking he had seen off his critics. Mickelson was humble and perhaps he had been humbled. Suffice to say that even for a man who loves the limelight, the 29 minutes and eight seconds that Mickelson was in its piercing glare on this day proved testing.
Top: Phil Mickelson
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