A LIV star like Phil Mickelson winning the Masters would be good for golf

AUGUSTA, Ga. — British Open champion Cam Smith, the LIV Golf star with the most recent accomplishments, believes it would benefit the brand if one of them wins the Masters. Former Masters champion Sergio Garcia, a controversial LIV Golf star, said the same. Phil Mickelson, the most accomplished and most controversial LIV Golf star, agrees.

“It would be nice to validate the amount of talent that is over there on LIV,” Mickelson said Tuesday after his practice round.

They’re all right. Well, half right. Winning would help the LIV brand, which isn’t great. But it also would help all of professional golf — especially if it was Phil who did the winning.

» READ MORE: LIV defectors get love, handshakes, and hugs at the Masters as they seek major validation

A little more than a year ago Mickelson had the world of golf in the palm of his hand. As Tiger crashed and Rory stalled and DJ and Brooks lost their way, Phil had won the 2021 PGA Championship at 50 years old, become the spokesman for the sport, and become a master of social media.

Then he sold his soul to the Saudis and LIV Golf for a reported $200 million. Several players worldwide followed him, enticed by hundreds of millions of dollars in bonus money and the promise of big paydays, fueling the biggest golf controversy in the modern era.

LIV has an ongoing antitrust suit against the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour has banned all LIV players. A handful of LIV players reportedly lost an arbitration hearing that will allow the DP World Tour to suspend and fine them.

The Masters announced in December it would allow the 18 LIV players who qualified to attend the tournament, but the announcement scolded them for leaving the PGA Tour.

It’s ugly.

If there’s one thing golf fans despise, its controversy. Almost no fans care about LIV. Almost all fans love Phil. And everybody’s sick of the feud: the players, the fans, the press, the courts. The PGA Tour has opened its pockets wide in response to LIV’s largesse, so the animosity expected at the Masters did not unfold.

As the 2023 season begins in earnest on the pristine grounds at Augusta National, this would be the perfect site to bury hatchets. PGA Tour players welcomed the 18 LIV players back with open arms Monday and Tuesday. The Champions’ dinner Tuesday night came off without incident. Masters members prayed for this convivial atmosphere, and they are delighted their prayers were answered.

“I’m hopeful that this week might get people thinking in a little bit different direction and things will change,” Masters chair Fred Ridley said Wednesday.

It could get even better. Phil could win.

» READ MORE: Masters chair Fred Ridley avoids LIV ethical issues as he assuages his banned PGA Tour ‘friends’

If Mickelson puts on a fourth green jacket on Easter Sunday evening, it will be the second biggest resurrection on record.

Can it happen?

He’s 52. His game belongs in Oscar’s garbage can and he’s been moping around the acreage like he’s Mr. Snuffleupagus.

But the Masters features a small, weak, top-heavy field. Mickelson enjoys a huge home-court advantage; it’s his 39th Masters, and he’s won three times. “Phil the Thrill” is fit and he’s healthy and he figures he has a puncher’s chance.

”I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t feel that way,” he said.

That may or may not be true.

He skipped last year’s Masters after a batch of quotes surfaced in which he acknowledged he was getting in bed with ““scary mf’ers” who “execute people for being gay,” but he was willing to do some “sports-washing” for them leveraging more money for players from the PGA Tour.

He is their show pony, and if he refused to play, the next time he checks his voicemail he might hear a bone saw.

Winning seems impossible. Playing in 48-man fields comprised of the golf world’s Pat Perezes, including the actual Pat Perez, Mickelson lately has finished 40th, 35th, 42nd, 34th, 41st, 32nd, and 27th. That’s the PGA Tour equivalent of going cut-cut-cut-cut-cut-cut-Pat Perez. He’s an aggregate 28-over par, and he’d probably be worse, but the events are only three rounds long.

“I’ve got to be realistic. I haven’t scored the way I want to, but I do see a lot of positive signs,” Mickelson said. “Things are about to click.”

That “click” would be as loud as a cannon shot.

» READ MORE: Can Tiger Woods contend at the Masters? No. Can he make the cut again? Depends.

No, Phil isn’t the best bet for LIV. He might be the worst.

Brooks Koepka, a four-time major winner and finally healthy, won the LIV lead-in event Sunday. Dustin Johnson, the 2020 Masters champion, won the LIV title last year. Patrick Reed, an Augusta State product who won here in 2018, is playing well.

Smith, Sergio Garcia, and Charl Schwartzel are not, but Smith has been rusty after taking a ton of time off; Garcia, 43, won here in 2017 at the age of 37; and Schwartzel’s four-birdie finish in 2011 remains the stuff of legend. Even Bubba Watson might make 44-year-old magic at the place where he notched his only two major wins.

The best news? No Greg Norman.

Ridley confirmed reports Wednesday that the Masters did not invite the Shark this year. Norman won 20 PGA Tour events and two British Opens, and he’s in the World Golf Hall of Fame, but he never won a Masters, so he had no right to come. Now, at 68, he is LIV’s pugnacious CEO. He has been vicious. He even suggested Sunday that if one of the 18 LIV players here wins the Masters that the other 17, dressed in their LIV-mandated golf shirts, celebrate with the winner behind the 18th green. That would be a breach of Green Jacket decorum the likes of which has never been seen.

Chief executives from the PGA Tour and DP Tour were on the grounds, but Norman would have been a walking distraction.

“I want the focus this week to be on the Masters competition, on the great players that are participating,” Ridley said.

Is Norman permanently banned?

“I don’t know where the world is going to be next year or two years from now,” he said. “I would never say never.”

Fingers crossed.

As repellant as Norman has become, Mickelson remained magnetic, until he sold his soul to the Saudis for $200 million. Now he seems to have metaphysically shrunk. He is withered. Wan. You used to be worried that he’d kick your butt and steal your girl, but he’s clearly lost his mojo.

For the first time in memory Mickelson didn’t play in the Par 3 Contest on Wednesday. He used to be the life of the party, but Tuesday night he reportedly sat silently through the Champions Dinner. “He didn’t speak at all,” Fuzzy Zoeller told Golfweek.

This is what happens when you face all that you’ve lost.

Mickelson has forfeited his Ryder Cup future. He was a lock to captain the 2025 team, but Bethpage Black is just 40 miles east of the World Trade Center, but “New York Phil” is now MBS Mickelson, a curdled Saudi whelp.

He loves Augusta National, where Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, and Tom Watson will hit ceremonial tee shots here Thursday morning. Someday Tiger will, too. But unless the House of Saud buys Augusta National, Mickelson never will be an honorary starter at the Masters.

Or will he?

“This is my favorite week,” he said.

He is one of Ridley’s favorite players. Ridley lamented Mickelson’s withdrawal last year. A win by Lefty this year, no matter how unlikely, would at least give hope for a weeklong annual truce at the Masters.

And that is good for golf.