What about Tiger & Phil? Questions persist as another major problem
Again and again, the reader will write this riddle: What happened to Tiger and Phil?
It is beyond ironic, that two of the greatest golfers of the past thirty years have all but disappeared from the scene of the sport even from a screen appearance.
Woods’ latest update came courtesy of People magazine. (He said.) The news was that the 15-time major champion is in a treatment facility outside the United States for what appears to be a three-month stay to address his addiction issues. This return to rehab — he sought treatment at a Mississippi facility in 2010 for violent behavior — came after his late March roadside arrest near his home in South Florida. Woods is expected to complete treatment by the end of June, although he did, in Peoplehe briefly returned to Florida after his girlfriend, Vanessa Trump, the former daughter-in-law of the current president, announced that she had breast cancer.
Tiger Woods is the last person who would want to pretend to be an actor in a real-life version of “As the World Turns,” but you have.
Wednesday, Golf Digest reported that Mickelson’s membership at the Farms Golf Club, his longtime hangout in northern San Diego County, was revoked after “a female club employee accused the six-time major of inappropriate contact before a round of golf.” Mickelson has, for some months now, retreated from public life due to, as Mickelson said on the eve of the Masters, a “personal health issue” involving a family member. In a series of articles on Golf Digest episode, various news channels quoted a statement from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department saying that the investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing by Mickelson and that the office would continue to investigate if evidence emerged.
Neither Mickelson nor Woods are in the field for the US Open at Shinnecock Hills next week. That is not at all surprising. Woods is 50 years old and physically challenged by multiple surgeries, the most complicated following his one-car collision in Los Angeles County in February 2021. Mickelson is nearly 56 years old and his LIV Golf performance has been average since the start of the league in 2022.
Shockingly he’s never captained the Ryder Cup, that’s also not a regular presence as a TV player, which isn’t éminence grise of the game, as Ben Hogan was in his 50s and beyond, as Arnold Palmer was, as Jack Nicklaus was and so. Golf’s long succession plan is irreparably disrupted here. The shocking thing is that we never saw Tiger and Phil. They have disappeared.
Woods, famously reticent in his limited public appearances over the years, mostly at sporting events, is on various PGA Tour committees and boards. But his pressing legal and mental health issues, following his recent arrest, have certainly taken away those bonds. Mickelson, for years and decades, has been almost as fun in his public life — his “Fireside with Phil” interview series and more. He had stunts, bits, funny diatribes. Those sides of the versatile left-handed golfer haven’t been seen in years as he went from cheering Phil to renegade Phil to Phil disappearing.
Rick Reilly, in a 2008 ESPN column, wrote:
Rooting for Tiger Woods is like rooting for Justin Timberlake to get lucky, Exxon to hit the gusher, Bill Gates to get twenty on the side of the road. It doesn’t require thinking. It doesn’t take courage. What is the point? It’s 1 to 5 you’ll win anyway, whether you’re happy or not. It makes no difference to him. It’s like root erosion.
On the other hand, rooting for Phil Mickelson is like rooting for a salmon to eat a bear. It takes faith. It requires forgiveness. It takes Tums. Mickelson is an earthquake roller coaster. One shot will be so breathtaking that you will cover your mouth in surprise. The following will be so Spammy that you will smack your forehead in disbelief. It’s like watching a blind guy jaywalk across Hollywood and Vine. Your fist is in your mouth all the way.
I bring all this up because Woods and Mickelson will play together on Thursday and Friday at the US Open. You have to choose. You can’t get rid of both. It’s not American.
That the 2008 US Open was at Torrey Pines in San Diego, where both Woods and Mickelson, children of Southern California, had played many times, as children, as novices, as outstanding professionals. Woods won the US Open in a playoff and, according to the legend of the week, “with a broken leg.” (It was a hair’s breadth, though Woods was clearly in a lot of pain.) Mickelson had a T18 finish.
The “Tiger & Phil Show” it couldn’t go on forever and it didn’t. In November 2009, Woods ran over a hydrant outside his home in a gated development near Orlando, after an argument with his then-wife, Elin Nordegren. After that event, his private life was revealed and his public life was never the same. The 9-iron that Nordegren used to smash the windows of Woods’s Cadillac Escalade after knocking over that backyard hydrant is one of those golf oddities that is part of the game’s macabre lore, famous for all the wrong reasons.
In 2018, when the US Open ended at Shinnecock Hills, Mickelson played hockey on the 13th green in Saturday’s round, turning his ball into a puck and his white Odyssey putter into a hockey stick, hitting at least one moving ball. Curtis Strange, on TV, then said, “I’ve never seen anything like that from a world-class player in my life.” Strange’s real-time commentary is open to interpretation in the outside lives of both subjects here, Mickelson and Woods. It’s also true that these two golf giants have played, and lived, in an era of extreme scrutiny that Nicklaus and Palmer never imagined. Nicklaus has talked about that, over the years. Anyway: who would have guessed any of this in 2008? Mickelson’s flatstick, that Saturday at Shinnecock, was a blade, a cousin of the hockey stick. You remember blade putters, right? As Woods used to say, Father Time never fails. Dusk comes at the end of each day in the sun.
Their talent is their talent. Woods, surprisingly, won the 2019 Masters at age 43. (Nicklaus won it at age 46 and people still talk about that.) Mickelson, surprisingly, won the 2021 PGA Championship at age 50. (Palmer never won the PGA Championship at all and people still talk about that, like a missing tooth..) Both Woods and Mickelson won those titles as barrel-chested, physically powerful men who could hit killer drives while chipping away at par. (Winning while smoking, back in the day? That was once common. But while chewing gum? Not a thing, pre-Woods. Mickelson’s rubber was blue.) Each found a way to turn back the hands of time. Each was overflowing with victory, in every way, including their post-competition comments. Now we hear from them mainly through statements made on social media, or from those who speak for them.
This is an actual quote from the latter Golf Digest reported on Mickelson’s situation with his former club staff: “‘Any misunderstandings have been resolved.'”
That sentence would probably mean something if it came directly from Mickelson, and it would mean a lot more if it came from a club employee. But both appear. Just another isolated statement from another PR person representing another famous person stuck in another bad place.
Phil was Phil speaking for himself. As for Woods, his clubs spoke volumes. In both cases, it’s been years since we’ve seen them do their thing. Golf has moved on. The gaping hole, between Arnie-Jack and Tiger-Phil, will not be closed. So much has happened, and we know so much.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com
