Phil Mickelson, the three-time Masters champion, will not be competing this year at Augusta National Golf Club.
Mickelson, who won the green jacket three times in 2004, 2006, and 2010, is not featured among the Masters’ active players. According to the tournament’s website, the six-time major winner and member of the World Golf Hall of Fame is listed as a prior champion who will not be competing.
The news was initially reported by SI.com.
Mickelson is taking a break from golf; he last competed on the PGA Tour in January at the Farmers Insurance Open. In 1993, the incumbent PGA champion competed in his first Masters, becoming the oldest winner of a major at Kiawah last year. Since 1995, he has participated in the competition every year.
Mickelson has been criticized for statements he made to Golf Digest and Fire Pit Collective disparaging the PGA Tour and its commissioner, Jay Monahan, as well as the despotic Saudi Arabia regime, which is funding a breakaway league led by Greg Norman that will compete with the PGA Tour.
Despite the country’s lengthy history of human rights violations, Mickelson called out the PGA Tour for its “obnoxious greed” and claimed he would use the alternative league, which is backed by tremendous financial resources, as leverage against the PGA Tour.
