This Phil thing really is taking the Mick!
The world’s in a GREAT place if one golfer’s words are such a huge deal…
Seriously, have I missed something on this whole Phil Mickelson furore?
The salient facts, as I understand them, are that a professional golf player said some words. Words that ended up being published.
And now, several weeks later, that golfer has become persona non grata, had sponsorship deals severed and skipped a Major at which he is part of the furniture. He’s exiled himself from public life. And we still don’t know if he’ll actually come out of hiding to defend his PGA Championship title in a couple of weeks.
His short-term crime, as far as I can tell, was to have an opinion on some issues and express it forcefully. And sure, Mickelson used a term or two that wouldn’t suit a family-friendly broadcast.
Do you have to agree with him? Hell no!
Are you allowed to think he’s gone off his rocker and makes no sense? Sure!
Can you accuse him of hypocrisy and ungratefulness? By all means!
Because free speech is a thing, after all, isn’t it?
Which means you can have your opinion – and very possibly be right – and Phil Mickelson gets to have his.
And then, ideally, we all move on. Because there are bigger issues in the world right now than what some guy said. Even if you run a tour (whoops, sorry, TOUR) and negative opinions being aired in public might make your hair stand on end.
There’s no way you could interpret the quotes in question as hate speech. And last time I checked, it wasn’t a felony to use salty language. So the problem here is...having opinions some people don’t like?
I get that there’s a bigger issue here around Mickelson’s level of involvement with the Saudi breakaway league thing (I think we’re all waiting for them to issue a name that trips off the tongue – like World Golf Tour, perhaps?) and which way he decides to go (or has already gone) on that. There may yet be bans, court battles…who knows?
But none of that ought to have prevented him from playing golf, right? Plenty of other players have been linked with the Saudi thing, or are rumoured to have signed up. None of them have put their seasons on hold.
And whatever bad blood may exist between Phil and the PGA Tour, he was never un-invited from the Masters. Augusta National Chairman Fred Ridley confirmed that much ahead of the recent tournament. Nor, as far as we know, has Mickelson actually been banned from the Tour (sorry, I just can’t do the shouty all-caps thing) at this stage. So as it stands, it can only be those few unpopular, puzzling words that have led to him and his management deciding to spend a few weeks behaving as though he’s a fugitive.
And that’s just silly. A sign of the aggressively sensitive times we live in.
Just like I never saw why we should care what Tiger Woods was getting up to with waitresses in his spare time, I don’t need to lose sleep over whether Phil Mickelson issues dull, iron-off-the-tee, PR-approved quotes or chooses to pull out the Big Dog and spray a few barbs. I’m interested in seeing them hit golf balls in big tournaments.
And it annoys me when holier-than-thou cancel culture goes out of its way to stand in the way of that.
Or have I, indeed, missed something?
While we’re on the subject of Tiger and Phil: I’m currently reading Bob Harig’s book documenting the pair’s rivalry. Stay tuned for my review – you can do so by hitting the subscribe button below!
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(Pic Credit: Supergolfdude, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)