Why Phil Mickelson Is Al-Rumayyan’s Trump Card for 2024 PGA Championship Despite His Flimsy LIV Form

The PGA Championship officially released its full field recently. From defending champion Brooks Koepka to past champions including Martin Kaymer and Phil Mickelson, the major will have a total of 16 golfers from the breakaway league playing in it. However, for Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of PIF, it might not be the 34-year-old who would be the hidden ace up his sleeve but ‘Lefty’.

A tweet was shared by Doug Ferguson, a writer in the sport, pointing out a unique Mickelson stat over the years. Surprisingly, it would seem that the Valhalla Golf Club will prove nothing short of a boon to the LIV Golf Pro, who is aiming for his third PGA Championship win.

How might Phil Mickelson fare at the 2024 PGA Championship?

This is the fourth time that the Valhalla Golf Course will host the major. To top it all off, the grounds saw the iconic event being played on it back in the years 1996, 2000, and 2014 and also witnessed Mickelson finishing inside the top 10 on all of them. From placing himself at T8 in 1996, T9 in 2000, and at the runner-up position in 2014, the left-handed golfer seems to have set himself up for yet another grand finish on the course. He would be the only golfer, aside from Steve Stricker and John Daly, who would have played at all three of those events.

Mickelson does pose a threat to the rest of the field given his track record at the championship. Of the six major victories he boasts, two of them came from the PGA Championship, in 2005 and 2021. The rest includes three Masters triumphs and an Open Championship win in 2013. At the same time, his LIV Golf history doesn’t seem too good to look at.

The 45-time PGA Tour winner doesn’t have a single win on the PIF-funded circuit, the professional has 3 top-10 finishes over the 27 starts he made on the same. Out of these, Phil Mickelson’s best placement came recently at the tournament in Jeddah, where he finished T6 tied with five other athletes.

A more personal reason can become a source of motivation for Mickelson to win at Valhalla. If he manages to win the event at the end of the fourth round, the 6-time major champ will be able to beat his own record of being the oldest to do so, especially at a time when people doubt his gameplay, much like he did back in 2021.

Mickelson and his 2021 PGA Championship win

“One of the moments I’ll cherish my entire life,” confessed an excited Mickelson after winning the 2021 edition of the major. Adding on, he said, “I don’t know how to describe the feeling of excitement and fulfillment and accomplishment to do something of this magnitude when very few people thought that I could,” while alluding to his age of 50 years 11 months and 7 days.

The victory was especially sweet owing to his previous performances. The pro had not won in more than two years after his 2018 WGC-Mexico Championship victory and had not carded a top-20 finish in almost nine months, along with being No.115 on the OWGR. Sound familiar? Extremely so, since he also has been winless for more than two years after the 2021 win. Well, Phil Mickelson just needs to believe in himself, just like he did during the previous win at the Ocean Resort: “This is just an incredible feeling because I believed it was possible, but everything was saying it wasn’t!”