The fallout surrounding Phil Mickelson’s allegiance to a Saudi-backed breakaway golf league continued Tuesday with news that one of his top endorsement deals has ended.
KPMG announced Tuesday afternoon that it concluded its relationship with the six-time major champion, a deal that reached back to 2008. Although the release said the two sides had “mutually agreed” to end their partnership, it was clearly a reaction to eroding support for Mickelson in the face of disparaging comments about the PGA Tour and the proposed Saudi-backed super golf league made to Alan Shipnuck that surfaced this week.
“The Tour likes to pretend it’s a democracy, but it’s really a dictatorship,” Mickelson told Shipnuck. “They divide and conquer. The concerns of the top players are very different from the guys who are lower down on the money list, but there’s a lot more of them. They use the top guys to make their own situation better, but the top guys don’t have a say.”
