He and Tiger have long hated each other --

by omahadomer, Sunday, June 28, 2026, 18:58 (23 days ago) @ hobbs

though not over stuff in this article.

I remember when Tiger announced he wasn't going to go back to Stanford for his (junior?) year and was going to play his way onto the PGA tournament in 7 sponsors' invites.

Mickelson said dismissively when asked about whether it was a good idea that "well he doesn't have a PGA card." All Tiger had to do was to play his way into the top 125 which he quickly did winning at least one tournament.

I thought "oh boy, this is gonna be something."

They tried to have a sort of Jack and Arnie routine but it never really came off. They played in those "matches" and did other stuff but they hated each other.

Tiger started winning majors right away (notably his huge win at the Master's in 1997) and it took Phil forever.

Tiger was dismissive of Phil because he thought Phil had more ability than anyone but didn't put in the work and constantly took crazy chances that cost him tournaments.

When Tiger got "outed" in the Thanksgiving debacle it is said that is scared Phil straight for a bit. The story I got (from a Korn-Ferry player so take it fwiw) is that Tiger had two phones and was going to play poker with Barkley and some others and took the wrong phone. His phone kept ringing at home and his wife picked it up and it was these sweet young things who had been trained to say they were from IMG. After about 6 phone calls from "IMG girls" it didn't take long for her to figure out what was going on. She reportedly smashed the f*ck out of his trophies and then went after him and his car when he got back home.

Phil has imo fewer excuses. He clearly has an addictive personality that he can't or won't control. How else does one suffer $70 million in gambling losses in a year? But he's had a wife who has put up with him through all of this.

Tiger had more scrutiny on him than anyone since Michael Jordan and his "team" built him a too-safe bubble.

They're both sort of tragic figures.

--
"Somewhere in Middle America"