Will The American Express tournament separate itself from Phil Mickelson?

LA QUINTA, Calif. — It’s a logical question to ask and one that is already being asked in the Coachella Valley: Will The American Express tournament separate itself from Phil Mickelson in the wake of Mickelson’s controversial comments on the Saudi Arabia-backed golf league and the PGA Tour?

After all, Mickelson has already lost some sponsors as fallout from his comments about the scary nature of the Saudi backers of the rival league and his views on changes needed for the PGA Tour. Mickelson is officially attached to The American Express tournament, but will that connection survive after Mickelson damaged his reputation?

It’s a little more complicated than it seems. To understand how complicated, you have to understand how a PGA Tour event operates in a local market.

The PGA Tour itself does not technically put on The American Express golf tournament. Yes, the Tour players show up to play and there are Tour officials who are on the course making sure everything runs properly. But the Tour contracts with local organizations, and those organizations operate as the host of the event. They are responsible for putting the tournament together, from parking to ticket sales to building merchandise and hospitality tents. Usually, that means hiring people to be part of the organization whose job is to run the tournament, or contracting with organizations that specialize in running sporting events.

Almost exclusively, those local host organizations are non-profits or charitable organizations. Those organizations, in turn, distribute the money from a tournament to worthy causes. Sometimes, the charitable money is given in one large sum to a single hospital, other times it’s a group of local charities who benefit.

In the Coachella Valley, the local organization was Desert Classic Charities from the first playing of the event in 1960 through the 2019 tournament, a run of 60 tournaments.  But later in 2019, that changed.

The PGA Tour, feeling the desert tournament needed new direction or new energy, ended its contract with Desert Classic Charities and instead entered an agreement with the Mickelson Foundation to run the tournament. That agreement started with the 2020 tournament and included Phil Mickelson being the host of the event. The foundation also contracted with management company SportFive to operate the tournament.

The very structure of the tournament

So, in essence, the Mickelson Foundation is the tournament. The Tour’s contract with the Mickelson Foundation runs through 2024, meaning the length of the original deal was five years of the event. Whether Mickelson is the face of the tournament is a different discussion than the Tour’s contract with the Mickelson Foundation, which oversaw the distribution of $1.1 million to desert charities last November.

There is another complex part of this issue, which is whether dropping Mickelson as the host is really the best option for the tournament, the Tour or for Mickelson.

Mickelson did almost nothing that resembled hosting the tournament last month, but that might have been because of his larger battle with the PGA Tour. It’s 11 months until the next tournament, and in that time tremendous changes could happen. Will Mickelson be back on the Tour by then after he takes some time off now? Will the typical golf fan, who may or may not care about this issue at all, be concerned if Mickelson is the face of the tournament?

Or is it possible that by the time the 2023 tournament is played, things will have come full circle for Mickelson and the Tour? It’s possible that a more sincere apology will be offered and accepted and the overall forgiving nature of sports fans in the country will say it is time to move on.

The Tour might still see benefit in Mickelson hosting the tournament, and Mickelson might see the tournament as a chance to continue rebuilding his image with fans who, for the most part, love him anyway. Social media burns bright, as it is now against Mickelson, but it also burns for a short time. There is likely another outrage just around the corner that will have people forgetting the Mickelson mess.

It’s also possible that Mickelson, who will be 52 at the time of the 2023 event, will be focused more on senior golf and the major championships than a regular Tour event in the desert. Again, 11 months is a long time in the golf world.

So it’s likely far too early for the Tour or Mickelson to make any decision about his association with The American Express in January 2023. The Tour and Mickelson may have changed by then.