A new version of a book about LIV and former PGA golfer Phil Mickleson is about to hit bookstands soon. Author Alan Shipnuck is due to release the paperback version of “Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorized!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colorful Superstar.”
Mickleson’s image has taken a hit since he was one of the first PGA golfers to leave the tour and join the LIV Tour and he encouraged other golfers to do so.
But according to Shipnuck’s book, not everyone on the LIV Tour is pleased nor likes Mickleson. In fact, one LIV player basically called Mickleson a suck-up.
In a recent excerpt of additions to the paperback version of the book on the Firepit Collective website, where Shipnuck writes regularly, he recalls a story told to him by another LIV golfer who let him in on the real Mickleson (who’s seen above at an Oct. 2022 LIV Golf event). That anonymous golfer had a lot to say about Mickelson’s behavior when it came to meeting the Saudi Arabian government, where his face-to-face comments were rather different from the “scary mother*******” he said about them previously (which Shipnuck published in the hardcover version of this book, leading to quite the backtracking from Mickelson).
“If you think Phil is a b******* artist normally, this was another level. You’ve never seen anyone kiss so much ass with that kind of enthusiasm and skill. He was ‘on’ from the second he got off the plane and never broke character. I’m pretty sure by the end of the week he could have been elected mayor of King Abdullah City, if they actually held elections over there.”
Yikes! That is a brutal assessment of one of the best golfers of all time.
[The Fire Pit Collective; photo from Jasen Vinlove/USA Today Sports]
