Phil Mickelson's Selfish Statements are Latest in Long History of Unchecked Ego, Recklessness

Alex Miceli writes that Phil Mickelson has plenty of examples where his greed and ego got the best of him, which makes the current Saudi story far less surprising.

Is Phil Mickelson this imprudent?

Making outlandish statements is Mickelson’s stock in trade, so at first blush, it makes total sense as you read the Fire Pit Collective piece that recounts his interview with Alan Shipnuck. You can hear the 51-year-old making absurd claims: that he worked with lawyers to form the Saudi league, that he did it all to put pressure on the PGA Tour to change its ways, that he doesn’t care if the Saudi league succeeds or fails.

Mickelson all but admitted the truth of the Shipnuck reporting in a statement he issued on Tuesday, just minutes before a mandatory player meeting was convened at 4:00 ET at The Honda Classic.

“There is the problem of off record comments being shared out of context and without my consent,” Mickelson said in his statement. “But the bigger issue is that I used words I sincerely regret that do not reflect my true feelings or intentions.”

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We’ll address the off-the-record allegation later, but it’s fair to say that from a purely journalistic standpoint, if a player starts to go off the rails, as Shipnuck represented that Mickelson did with his comments, I believe it's smart to at some point pause the interview and clarify the fact that the interview is indeed on the record.

We don’t know if that was done here, but the mechanics of how the interview was conducted does not exonerate Mickelson.

Mickelson’s moves are always calculated. He wastes little oxygen on frivolity but instead tries to either show you how smart he is or has an ulterior motive behind a particular statement or action.

Related: Brooks Koepka Says Everyone on PGA Tour is Happy -- Except Mickelson

In the excerpt of the book, Mickelson fails to live up to the adage, “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” and goes scorched earth on the PGA Tour, commissioner Jay Monahan and his new friends, the Saudis, whose money he is accepting while also calling them scary mother-------.

It’s classic Phil and if you have been around long enough, you have seen it before.

After the U.S. lost the 2014 Ryder Cup at Gleneagles, Mickelson went off in the team press conference, filleting U.S. captain Tom Watson is full view of the golfing world. Speaking as if Watson was not there and using 2008 U.S. Captain Paul Azinger’s pod system as an example of how Watson should have captained.

When a reporter followed up during that press conference, Mickelson was his classic self.

“Oh, I'm sorry you're taking it that way,” Mickelson said. “I'm just talking about what Paul Azinger did to help us play our best. It's certainly -- I don't understand why you would take it that way. You asked me what I thought we should do going toward to bring our best golf out and I go back to when we played our best golf and try to replicate that formula.”

Another media member asked, Did that happen this week? “Uh … no,” Mickelson said. “No, nobody here was in any decision.”

If you were in the room, which I was, it was a chilling rebuke to Watson and none of the U.S. team members looked fondly on Mickelson’s antics that day.

Two years later to Hazeltine and the 41st Ryder Cup, Mickelson took a stab at 2004 U.S. Ryder Cup Captain Hal Sutton.

As background, in 2004 Mickelson signed a new equipment deal with Callaway Golf the week of the Ryder Cup, and he would play the company’s gear that week – a new ball and new clubs. So, Mickelson spent most of his practice time learning how his new equipment performed while camped out the North course hitting shot after shot, while his 11 teammates practiced together on the South course.

Twelve years later, Mickelson was asked a general question about captains and decided to go after Sutton.

“Twelve years ago, okay, in 2004, Tiger and I were paired together, and we ended up not playing well. And was that really the -- was that the problem? I mean, maybe. But we were told two days before that we were playing together. And that gave us no time to work together and prepare,” Mickelson said. “So I grabbed a couple dozen of his balls, I went off to the side, and tried to learn his golf ball in a four- or five-hour session on kind of an isolated -- one of the other holes out there trying to find out how far the ball goes. And it forced me to stop my preparation for the tournament, to stop chipping and stop putting and stop sharpening my game and stop learning the golf course, in an effort to crash-course and learn a whole different golf ball that we were going to be playing.”

Mickelson went on to say he was not trying to knock anybody, and he actually loved how decisive Captain Sutton was.

According to John Feinstein’s book, The First Major, Mickelson returned to the team room after his Wednesday press conference at Hazeltine feeling proud of himself but found that most of his team was concerned about what he had just done.

The Europeans were wondering as well.

“It’s almost as if they’re to figure a way to help Europe win,” said agent Chubby Chandler, who represents Darren Clarke, in "The First Major." “I have no idea what they’re thinking over there.”

Ryder Cup aside, Mickelson has also skated in the gray area of insider trading, using questionably obtained information from gambler Billy Walters to purchase Dean Foods stock in 2012.

Mickelson reportedly purchased $2.46 million of Dean stock between July and August 2012 and sold it on August 8 for a profit of nearly $1 million, all of it reportedly used to pay toward a gambling debt to Walters of $1,950,000.

In 2014, the FBI uncovered a scheme between Dean Foods Chairman Tom Davis and Walters, and eventually learned of Mickelson’s involvement.

Unfortunately for the prosecutors, a recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals had thrown out a conviction of Todd Newman, who was convicted of insider trading through second-hand information, similar to how most believe Mickelson learned of the Dean Foods information.

Even though Mickelson was going to plead the 5th Amendment to avoid self-incrimination if forced to testify, the prosecutors decided to not charge Mickelson, effectively letting him off on what many described at the time as a technicality. He was forced to repay the $931,738 he made in profit plus interest of $105,291.

Those are just a few of Mickelson’s forays into selfishness, greed and ego.

So, when you read the quotes attributed to Mickelson in the upcoming Shipnuck book, you really don’t doubt who the source is: it smells, sounds and reads like Mickelson.

But one thing makes me wonder: why burn the whole house down to a reporter? What was the benefit to Mickelson?

In his statement on Tuesday, Mickelson said he used words he sincerely regrets that do not reflect his true feelings or intentions, which makes you wonder which of the statements are true and which are not. What are Mickelson’s true feelings?

I would assert that Mickelson is not only calculated, but also greedy and egotistical, so his actions are focused on one thing: his own benefit. The statements he gave Shipnuck in November no way benefit Mickelson, and the response to the article has left him deeper in exile and now, he has lost KPMG, a long-time sponsor.

Could he be so arrogant that he needs the world to know that he and three other pros hired a lawyer to draft up the plans for the Saudi Golf League, and the entire league was his idea?

Does he think it was smart to tell the world that he came up with the plan to use the Saudis as a Stalking Horse with the PGA Tour? And if true, why give that up to anyone, much less a reporter?

Do you throw your new best friends the Saudis under the bus, call them unthinkable names, accuse them of crimes, even if true? And then suggest the venture on which they are willing to spend hundreds of millions is not important to him and if it fails, c’est la vie?

None of this makes sense. And while everyone is going with the Shipnuck version like its gospel, I’d like to know more. I’d like to hear from Mickelson and see what he says in refuting these allegations. In a short conversation on Monday with Steve Loy, Mickelson’s agent, he would only offer up "no comment." A day later, a 530-word statement was issued that covered everything but answered very little.

It’s unclear when Mickelson will next speak publicly. He has not played in a PGA Tour event since the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, where he missed the cut.

There is no doubt Mickelson could be this reckless and not asked the simple question – Is this off the record or on background? But even with Mickelson’s ego, I still have many more questions I’d like to ask.