As if Phil Mickelson needed any more negative publicity, Tiger Woods on Wednesday night ridiculed him for celebrating too early in the PGA Tour’s inaugural staging of its contentious popularity competition.
While Mickelson claimed in December that he had topped the 2021 Player Impact Program, the Tour revealed that it was actually Woods who picked up the $8 million (£6 million) winning bonus despite not playing in an official tournament all year.
After the announcement, Woods retweeted Mickelson’s premature boast which thanked “all the crazies and real supporters too, who helped me win the PIP..” And above it Woods posted “whoops” together with a couple of emojis expressing bafflement.
Kick a man when he’s down… Mickelson is on a break from the game in the wake of his recent Saudi Arabia controversy which cost him the majority of his sponsors. His face must be an even deeper shade of red now.
Mickelson can only have assumed that as he was leading the race to generate most fan engagement – having made history at last May’s US PGA by becoming the oldest winner of a major – in November he would remain top of the standings for the Dec 31 cut-off point.
However, that month’s data had yet to be taken into account and it seems as if Woods’s second-place performance alongside son Charlie in the Tour’s parent and child event two weeks before Christmas took him past his old rival.
So Mickelson has to settle for the $6 million second prize, which is of course far from a pitiful amount and which the 51-year-old might actually find useful after losing at least $35 million in annual endorsements for a few stunning remarks he insists were made in confidence.
Speaking to an author of a forthcoming unauthorised biography, he called the Saudis “scary motherf—–s” to deal with and admitted he was doing so only to gain leverage over the Tour in his fight…
Source : yahoo
