Phil Mickelson has put himself in a rough position this year. His incendiary comments about leaving the PGA for a Saudi-backed league sparked instant controversy and led to the lefty taking a break from the sport.
Those comments became public thanks to longtime golf writer Alan Shipnuck, who’s biography of Mickelson is due out this year. On Thursday, Shipnuck released another wild report, detailing the massive gambling losses Mickelson endured from 2010-14.
According to Shipnuck’s latest post on The Fire Pit Collective, Mickelson gambled away more than $40 million over four years. The figure comes from a government forensic audit of Mickelson’s finances during the Billy Walters insider trading investigation.
“According to a source with direct access to the documents, Mickelson had gambling losses totaling more than $40 million in the four-year period (2010–14) that was scrutinized. In those prime earning years, his income was estimated to be just north of $40 million a year. That’s an obscene amount of money, but once he paid his taxes (including the California tariffs he publicly railed against), he was left with, what, low-20s? Then he had to cover his plane and mansion(s), plus his agent, caddie, pilots, chef, personal trainer, swing coaches and sundry others. Throw in all the other expenses of a big life—like an actual T. Rex skull for a birthday present—and that leaves, what, $10 million? Per the government audit, that’s roughly how much Mickelson averaged in annual gambling losses. (And we don’t know what we don’t know.) In other words, it’s quite possible he was barely breaking even, or maybe even in the red. And Mickelson’s income dropped considerably during his winless years from 2014 to ’17.”
That is a staggering amount of money even for a professional athlete used to winning large sums at a time. As Shipnuck notes, Phil went winless on tour from July 2013 to March 2018.
It’s easy to understand why his game fell off. Now, years later, the losses just keep piling up for Phil.
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