Was Phil Mickelson the most controversial figure of 2022? A look at the golfer’s year

Phil Mickelson’s 2022 will be remembered more off the golf course than inside. Mickelson made headlines every month or two, but not for good reason. He had a lackluster year on the greens, but he was one of the best reporters of the year.

He spoke about the PGA Tour and spoke out against their policies, but he didn’t spare LIV Golf either. A few of his comments caused a lot of controversy for the veteran.

Phil Mickelson vs. PGA Tour

For the first time since 1994, Phil Mickelson missed the Masters. According to reports, Augusta National officials have told the three-time Masters champion not to come to the tournament this time. This happened due to his remarks on the PGA Tour.

In February, Mickelson accused the PGA of being greedy. He felt he had no rights to the footage of the shots he played and that the Tour should be a bit more flexible if they wanted to take on Saudi-backed LIV Golf.

Mickelson was quoted by Golf Digest as saying:

“But the players don’t have access to their own media. If the tour wanted to end any threat, they could just return the media rights to the players. But they’d rather throw in $25m here and $40m there instead. than giving back the roughly $20 billion in digital assets they control. Or giving up access to the more than $50 million they earn each year on their own media channel.” Phil Mickelson didn’t even spare LIV Phil Mickelson with LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman

If you think Phil only had one opinion on the PGA, then you don’t know him enough. Although he was associated with LIV, he still had a lot to say about them, which caused quite a stir.

Mickelson was quoted by Alan Shipnuck:

“They are scary mothers—-“, with a “horrible human rights record”.

Mickelson made the comments despite supporting the rival league as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make changes to the PGA Tour.

This excerpt from his biography further stated that the country had executed journalist Jamal Khashoggi, had been implicated in anti-LGBTQ killings, and had terrible human rights statistics.

As a result, Mickelson lost several sponsors like KPMG and Workday while Callawy put his long-standing relationship with Mickelson on hold. He was condemned by several players.

Rory McIlroy had strong words for Phil’s comments and overall storyline

He said in February:

“I don’t want to kick someone while they’re down obviously, but I thought I was being naive, selfish, selfish, ignorant.”

As a result, Mickelson had to issue an apology,

His statement read:

“It was reckless, I offended people and I am deeply sorry for my choice of words. I know I haven’t been at my best and I desperately need time to prioritize those I I love the most and work to be the man I want to be Mickelson’s 2022 as a player.

As a professional, 2022 has been an unforgettable year for Phil Mickelson. He didn’t play in the Masters, nor did he play in the PGA Championship, where he was the defending champion. Therefore, he came out of 200 in the OWGR. So we can say that 2022 has been quite forgetful for the veteran and hopefully it can only get better from here.