Phil Mickelson is one of the most controversial players in the world of golf. The six-time major winner is also one of the most influential golfers to move to the LIV Golf league. After Jay Monahan’s statement about the suspension of PGA Tour players, LIV Golf players couldn’t participate in the PGA Tour events. But some players including Mickelson were against the ban that PGA imposed on LIV players. When asked about his reaction, Mickelson had a few suggestions for the PGA Tour to make their format better, and surprisingly, that is exactly what the Tour is doing.
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What were Phil Mickelson’s demands from the PGA Tour?
According to Mickelson, the tour was paying lesser money to the golfers than LIV Golf. Mickelson mentioned in a few of his interviews that the PGA Tour should spend more money on the players. He also emphasized for the tour to increase the prize money for their events. However, the PGA Tour made no amendments to their events according to his suggestions.
Mickelson made a lot of comments about the PGA Tour stating that they had taken over media rights of their players’ shots. “They are sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of digital content we could be using for our social media feeds,” Mickelson said. He also made statements about how the Tour only cared about the top players, but don’t offer them a vote in their decisions. “They use the top guys to make their own situation better, but the top guys don’t have a say,” he said.
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In his comments, Mickelson also predicted that there were at least “20 guys” who would quit the tour if nothing changed. And later when the LIV Tour came into existence, Mickelson and a lot of other players left the tour and shifted to LIV Golf.
Will Phil Mickelson come back to the PGA Tour?
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According to the recent updates, PGA Tour has been doing everything that LIV Golf was doing for the players. Be it an increase in the prize money and purses, or the newly added formats of their games, PGA Tour is not being left behind. It also looks like they are religiously following all the suggestions given by Lefty himself.
But does that mean that Phil Mickelson would prefer returning to the PGA Tour? If we look at Mickelson’s choices, he has always wished to be a part of the PGA Tour along with playing LIV Golf events. The fact that Mickelson filed a lawsuit against the PGA Tour claiming that the ban they have imposed is unlawful, gives away his wish to rejoin the former tour.
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However, the PGA Tour is not ready to welcome Mickelson back anytime soon. As per PGA Tour’s actions against Mickelson, the golfer is banned until 2024 and is not allowed to appear for reconsideration. With every LIV Golf tournament that Mickelson played, PGA Tour has raised the limit of his ban. But if there is ever a chance of the Tour merging with LIV Golf, it might lead to the return of Mickelson to the PGA Tour.
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