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Phil Mickelson made a significant career decision in 2022. He left the PGA and accepted a contract with LIV Golf worth roughly $200 million. This made him one of the highest-paid golfers on the tour. During the same season, Mickelson expressed his dissatisfaction with the PGA Tour and explained why he does not want to continue playing on the tour.
In February 2022, Mickelson delivered an interesting interview to Golf Digest. During the interview, he said that if he won the US Open, he would retire. Mickelson remarked that after completing a career Grand Slam, there will be nothing else for him to accomplish and that the PGA Tour has already tested his nerves.
Phil Mickelson revealed how the PGA Tour owns all of the golfers' media rights and charges them for using any of them. Mickelson believes that there are many problems with the tour, but this is one of the most serious. The golfer further stated that the PGA Tour already has billions of dollars, and that asking athletes for money solely for media exposure is foolish and greedy. The golfer stated:
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"There are many issues, but that is one of the biggest. For me personally, it’s not enough that they are sitting on hundreds of millions of digital moments. They also have access to my shots, access I do not have. They also charge companies to use shots I have hit. And when I did ‘The Match’—there have been five of them—the tour forced me to pay them $1 million each time. For my own media rights. That type of greed is, to me, beyond obnoxious."
The PGA Tour has never responded to Phil Mickelson's comment. Mickelson, meanwhile, secured a contract with the LIV Golf four months after making this statement.
Phil Mickelson once revealed why the golfers are not allowed to have cameras and microphones in the PGA
In the same interview with Golf Digest, Phil Mickelson also discussed another key PGA Tour rule. No golfer or caddie can wear a camera on their hat. Mickelson argued that the reason for this is that the player would earn far more money than the PGA, something the tour would not enjoy.
Mickelson also highlighted how, for Netflix shows, the golfers are not paid, but the tour does. He explained:
"Why hasn’t golf had cameras and microphones on players and caddies? Because the player would not benefit, only the tour, so players resist wearing them. Take this Netflix project that is underway. None of the players are getting paid. But the tour is getting paid a lot of money. As is Augusta National. As is the USGA. But if the players had their own channel, maybe they put up their own content, and we start to see golf presented a bit more intimately."
In comparison, LIV Golf has no camera or microphone laws and regulations. They provide the golfers the freedom to generate content from the tournament they partake in.
