Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have spent the vast majority of their careers hitting pictures towards each other. However with the 2 stars on reverse sides of golf’s civil warfare between the PGA Tour and LIV, they’re now taking pictures at one another.
Tuesday was Mickelson’s flip.
Woods, showing at his Hero World Problem within the Bahamas, the place he was set to compete earlier than withdrawing on Monday, was requested if gamers on the Tour owe Mickelson an apology for all of the criticism he took for bolting for Saudi-backed LIV Golf when it was the emergence of the rival faction that resulted in a dramatic improve in prize cash for Tour gamers.
“No, completely not, no,” Woods mentioned. “We took out an infinite mortgage through the pandemic by which that, if we had one other yr of the pandemic, our Tour would solely be sustained for an additional yr. So we took out an infinite mortgage. It labored, it paid off in our profit, therefore we had been in a position to make use of that cash to make the will increase that we’ve made.”
Mickelson took to Twitter to fireplace again, noting parts from the Tour’s 2018 tax returns.
“1.6 billion in shares 700 million in money 1.15 billion in non liquid belongings,” the 52-year-old six-time main champion wrote. “That is from the non revenue part. The for revenue part hasn’t been acknowledged since 2012 however was greater than the non revenue half at the moment. This may all be googled.”
The Tour additionally corrected Woods’ feedback.
Per Sports activities Illustrated, the Tour mentioned that it didn’t take out a mortgage to cope with the pandemic in 2020. Reasonably, it used reserves and “mitigating actions” and would have seen a major discount in reserves with out the game returning to motion in June 2020.
The Tour additionally mentioned, per SI, that Woods may need been referencing that reserves would have dipped beneath $100 million with out golf resuming in 2020.
It additionally wasn’t the primary time Mickelson has taken a dig on the Tour over monetary issues.
In Mickelson’s now-infamous interview together with his biographer, Alan Shipnuck, Mickelson claimed the Tour was “already sitting on an $800 million money stockpile.”
“How do you assume they’re funding the [Player Impact Program]?” he mentioned on the time. “Or investing $200 million within the European Tour? The Tour is meant to be a nonprofit that distributes cash to charity. How the [hell] is it authorized for them to have that a lot money readily available? The reply is, it’s not.”
In the meantime, LIV Golf on Wednesday introduced three extra tournaments for its schedule with stops in Mexico, Singapore and Spain in 2023. They may play a complete of 14 occasions subsequent yr, starting in February.
Woods, whereas not taking part in on this week’s event within the Bahamas due to plantar fasciitis, does nonetheless intend to play within the newest iteration of “The Match” on Dec. 10 alongside Rory McIlroy, with the 2 taking up Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas. He's additionally slated to once more play together with his son Charlie within the PNC Championship Dec. 18-19 in Orlando.
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