Phil Mickelson set to make public return, will play LIV Golf London event

After taking a leave of absence from pro golf for 3 1/2 months, Phil Mickelson is set to return this week. The highly anticipated appearance will not come at a PGA Tour event or a major championship, though, but rather at the LIV Golf London event.

The league’s CEO, Greg Norman, confirmed on Monday that Mickelson will play in the first event, which begins on Thursday outside of London.

“Phil Mickelson is unequivocally one of the greatest golfers of this generation,” Norman said in a release. “His contributions to the sport and connection to fans around the globe cannot be overstated and we are grateful to have him.”

Mickelson sightings over the last few months have been rare. Once extremely active on social media, the 51-year-old has also gone silent for the last 100-plus days.

On Feb. 22, Mickelson announced he would be taking “some time away to prioritize the ones I love most and work on being the man I want to be.” Comments he made in a recently published biography unearthed misgivings he had with the PGA Tour and steps he made to aid LIV Golf Investments in creating a rival series of events. They also included Mickelson’s purpose for entertaining contracts with a brand funded by the Saudi Arabian government: leverage at the bargaining table with the PGA Tour. 

Mickelson will take part in the 48-player event, which made waves last week when two-time major winner Dustin Johnson was announced as part of the field.

The event, hosted at Centurion Club outside London, begins Thursday, and will be 54 holes, beginning with a shotgun start. It will consist of 48 players, all selected onto 12 four-man teams during a draft on Tuesday. Teams and captains will be announced during Tuesday’s draft, as well as team names. Mickelson will almost surely be one of the 12 captains. 

What remains unclear is Mickelson’s intentions with the PGA Tour, where he has enjoyed a 30-year career. It is possible that Mickelson faced disciplinary action earlier this spring when the initial news broke, but the Tour does not make that information public.

Speaking only two weeks after Mickelson’s announcement, Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said he had not discussed anything with Mickelson. “I think that as it relates to Phil, you said it; the ball is in his court,” Monahan said during the Players Championship. “He has said that he’s stepping away and he wants time for reflection. That’s something that I and we are going to respect and honor.

“When he’s ready to come back to the PGA Tour, we’re going to have that conversation. That’s a conversation I look forward to.”

Mickelson has not returned to the Tour in the months since, even refusing to play in the year’s first two major championships, which are both run by non-Tour governing bodies. Mickelson texted Augusta National chairman Fred Ridley that he would not be playing at the Masters in April, and informed the PGA Championship that he would not defend his title at Southern Hills. Both announcements came via the tournaments themselves, not Mickelson. 

As for now, there is at least one date for Mickelson to play golf publicly, and that’s just days away. The U.S. Open, operated by the USGA and the one major championship Mickelson has never won, will take place one week later in Massachusetts.