Hall of Fame golfer Phil Mickelson, a six-time major winner with a powerful drive and a penchant for gambling on his course approaches (and off the course, for that matter), is the second-greatest player of his generation after only Tiger Woods. But he has seen his popularity plummet of late.

Lefty, now, 53, opted to ink a fully-guaranteed deal worth an estimated $200 million with the much-maligned startup LIV Golf, a rival tournament to the PGA Tour. He defected to the controversial LIV Golf after a 30-year stint with the PGA Tour in 2022. He has won 45 PGA tournaments, tied for the eighth-most in golf history.

He’s burned through a lot of his goodwill, losing sponsorships and a lot of fans (although he still gets pretty solid crowd support at the majors, where he is permitted to play). Mickelson has also been outspokenly vocal about his issues with the PGA Tour.

A few weeks ago, he was at it again, per Jack Milko of SB Nation. Mickelson went out of his way to attack the PGA Tour, by explaining that a lot of the opportunities associated with LIV, and not the insane guaranteed money that he’ll never earn on the course again at his age, are what drove him into the arms of such an unloved competing venture.

“We didn’t have an opportunity for elevated events [in the PGA],” Mickelson revealed. “We didn’t have an opportunity for equity. We didn’t have an opportunity to do our own social media. That was all controlled and shot down.”

The big positive thing to happen with LIV, which has fractured the PGA significantly, has been how it has forced the PGA to think with a bit more modernity when it comes to profit participation, among other issues.

“Every event is an elevated event,” Mickelson said. “We have equity, and we have the ability to do these social media posts and try to transcend the game of golf to different generations. All of these things were not possible before LIV came along.”

The ASU product was beloved for his pulverizing looks off the tee and his deft scrambling when said pulverizing looks would go awry. He was, in many ways, a perfect response to Woods as a golfer: though both men were some of the longest hitters on the PGA Tour in their primes, their games couldn’t have been more different in a lot of other respects. Woods was studious, methodical, and passionate.Mickelson frequently hit first and asked questions later, often blowing big leads on Sundays in the majors before he finally broke through with the 2004 Masters, aged 34 (a bit later than it really should have been).

Mickelson was also so s𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁ed at basically every aspect of the game on the course, however, that he could often compensate for some of his mental mistakes with deft chipping and/or putting. When he did notch his first major, the floodgates opened, and he developed a confidence we hadn’t quite seen before.

Now, the noise about his ascent from beloved also-ran to beloved aging champion has faded into the background a bit, as he has doubled and tripled down on his LIV commitment.