Phil Mickelson is now not going to defend his title in next week’s US PGA Championship at Southern Hills, tournament organisers contain announced.
Mickelson has been taking a destroy from golf for the explanation that fallout from his explosive feedback about the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed breakaway spearheaded by Greg Norman.
The six-time main winner formally registered for the US PGA and next month’s US Start on 25 April and also requested a free up from the PGA Tour to play the main LIV Golf Invitational Series tournament from 9-11 June, a inquire of that was as soon as denied earlier this week.
His agent mentioned on the time that Mickelson was as soon as merely maintaining his alternate ideas commence and didn’t contain “concrete plans” about his return to motion.
In a publish on Twitter on Friday evening, the PGA of The united states wrote: “We now contain factual been informed that Phil Mickelson has withdrawn from the PGA Championship.
“Phil is the defending champion and for the time being eligible to be a PGA Lifestyles Member and we are going to contain welcomed him to participate. We need Phil and Amy [his wife] the very easiest and watch ahead to his return to golf.”
Mickelson’s victory at Kiawah Island final one year made him the oldest ever winner of a males’s main championship, his two-shot desire over Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen coming handiest a month sooner than his 51st birthday.
The left-hander has now not played since February’s Saudi Worldwide, shortly after which his feedback about the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed events were made public.
In an interview with the author of a drawing cease biography, Mickelson admitted he was as soon as successfully conscious about Saudi Arabia’s “substandard portray on human rights”, along side the kill of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but was as soon as the utilization of the threat of a breakaway to “reshape” how the Tour operates.
Norman mentioned the fleshy league of 14 events had been ready to originate in mid-February unless Mickelson’s feedback designate him loads of sponsors and resulted in some gamers taking flight.
LIV Golf, of which the 2-time Start champion Norman is the CEO, has in its build procedure up eight 48-man events in 2022, with the main to be staged at Centurion Club in Hertfordshire from 9-11 June. The concept is to stage 10 events in 2023 and the fleshy 14 from 2024, and Norman insists he’s calling “decades” into the future.
Mickelson apologised for his reckless feedback and mentioned: “I and not utilizing a doubt contain made plenty of errors in my existence and plenty of had been shared with the general public. My intent was as soon as by no methodology to distress somebody and I’m so sorry to the folk I and not utilizing a doubt contain negatively impacted.
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“I and not utilizing a doubt contain skilled many a hit and rewarding moments that I will continuously like, but I and not utilizing a doubt contain in total failed myself and others too. The previous 10 years I and not utilizing a doubt contain felt the stress and stress slowly affecting me at a deeper level.
“I know I and not utilizing a doubt contain now not been my easiest and desperately want a whereas away to prioritise the ones I and not utilizing a doubt like most and work on being the individual I want to be.”