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The greatest golfers in the world are gathering this week in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. in what is always one of the best events of the season and features one of the most dramatic holes in all of golf.
I’m talking, of course, about the Players Championship.
Missing from the names that will be teeing it up at TPC Sawgrass is Phil Mickelson. The legendary lefty hasn’t been seen in a few weeks ever since his comments about how a possible Saudi golf league could challenge the PGA Tour led to many sponsors kicking him to the curb and led to Phil, the lover of the spotlight, hiding out at home.
The Players Championship is the PGA Tour’s celebratory event that has seen it’s purse rise to a whopping $20 million bucks and has become basically a fifth major championship. Mickelson has contended here a number of times and won it in 2007.
He won’t win it this year, though, and he has nobody to blame but himself for that. The selfish strategy he used to try to use the Saudi league in his favor and, more importantly to likely make him a lot more money, crashed and burned so hard that he’s actually lost a ton of money because of it.
It’s fitting that he won’t be at Sawgrass this week because he doesn’t deserve to be amongst a group of players who are working together to make the PGA Tour an even better place for them and, in turn, an even better product for golf fans.
Phil is a Phil fan and has always been so, dating way back to his FIGJAM days. He’s always been one to put himself in front of the group and have the spotlight hit him first but now he’s nowhere to be found because his mouth got him in a lot of trouble, which is something just about anyone could have predicted to happen.
Many have wondered if the PGA Tour has suspended Mickelson because of his comments. The Tour doesn’t announce those types of punishments but it does feel like that is something that could be in play for one of the greatest golfers to ever play.
Not being in Florida this week has to be brutal for Mickelson, and you know what? It should be. He did this to himself.
The Players Championship should be a lot of fun this week. And it’s even more fun knowing Phil will be missing out on all of it.
Quick hits: Why MLB wants bigger bases… Would eliminating the shift be good for MLB?… How Calvin Ridley got caught betting on NFL games.
– While the MLB lockout continues to drag on there could be one big change when/if the game returns – bigger bases. Why? Allow my friend Charles Curtis to explain.
– Would banning the shift be good for baseball? Andrew Joseph looks at another possible change for MLB that could happen if it ever returns.
– Falcons WR Calvin Ridley was suspended for all of the 2022 season yesterday for betting on NFL games. Christian D’Andrea explains how Ridley got caught.
