Phil Mickelson has a happy knack of enemies
The American icon became a golfing pariah when he broke off from the PGA Tour to sign a reported $200m (US) deal with Greg Norman’s LIV tour. This despite describing the Saudi Government, the financial backers of the rebel tour, as “scary motherf******”.
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Now the lid has been lifted on an explosive feud with fellow LIV Golf star Pat Perez.
Appearing on Claude Harmon’s “Son of a Butch” podcast, Perez evealed his true feelings about the 52-year-old.
“When it comes to Phil, I have a different hate for Phil than most people,” Perez told Harmon.
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“People won’t know the story—I’m not going to go into the story again—but Phil crossed the line with me that is just uncrossable and unforgivable.
“He knows that he screwed up. He apologized for the action, but I cannot forgive him for it because I’ve known Phil for a long, long time. I’ve known the guy forever.
“And the fact that when he made this action, not only was it—he had intentions of doing it; he knew it was going to happen before it happened and when he did it—I was hurt, for one.
“I was like ‘How can this guy do this?’
Alan Shipnuck, who wrote the controversial biography on Mickelson, shed some light on the incident during a Q and A with readers this month.
“What’s the Pat Perez/Phil dust-up about? I read once in a detective novel that all crime is about sex or money. My bet is sex … you?”
Shipnuck said he was aware of the allegations but said they were too explosive to reveal until he had confirmed with Perez.
“Well, it ain’t about money. In the course of reporting my book on Mickelson I kept hearing of his rift with Perez, a fellow San Diego native,” he responded.
“They have a lot of history. Perez has always fancied himself a Tiger guy, which means he has never been warm and cuddly toward Phil. But what inspired Perez to spout off on various podcasts lately was Mickelson doing something that deeply offended Perez and his wife Ashley.
“ I approached Pat a couple of times to see if he’d go on-record, but he declined.
“ I had a handful of players and caddies tell me they heard of the incident directly from Perez, but the details are so inflammatory I didn’t feel comfortable putting the story in the book without direct confirmation.
“This whole situation is still clearly festering with Perez so we’ll see if he chooses to make the details public; if so, that will certainly set off a firestorm.”
