After a nearly four-month exile from public life, PGA great Phil Mickelson has finally broken his silence, announcing Monday his plans to join LIV Golf, a new tour backed by Saudi investors. Mickelson joins Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Louis Oosthuizen, Graeme McDowell, Charl Schwartzel and Lee Westwood among 48 players competing in this week’s inaugural event in London.
Mickelson lost two of his biggest sponsors—Amstel Light and KPMG—in February after vouching for Greg Norman’s new overseas golf league despite unspeakable atrocities by the Saudi government including murdering Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. The 51-year-old had been off the grid for months prior to Monday’s announcement, skipping the Masters in April followed by another absence at the PGA Championship, a tournament he won as recently as last year.
Though LIV Golf will be his primary focus, Mickelson said he still plans to compete in majors, which are not sanctioned by the PGA. Players have been warned that entering LIV events in defiance of the PGA could affect their membership status, resulting in fines, suspensions and potentially being banned altogether. Anticipating harsh sanctions, World No. 34 Kevin Na recently announced his resignation from the PGA, committing to LIV as a full-time member.
While the new tour will be extremely lucrative (Ian Poulter made the jump to LIV after being offered a reported $30 million), players who join it will be making a moral compromise, complicit in supporting a hopelessly corrupt government with an appalling history of human rights abuses.
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