Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods enjoyed a thrilling rivalry throughout the late 1990s and on into the 2000s.
Woods obviously ended up with the better record, with 82 PGA Tour wins to his name, including 15 major championships.
However, Mickelson’s record of 45 PGA Tour victories and six majors is nothing to be sniffed at.
It’s fair to say that Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are two of the most legendary players to have graced the PGA Tour in the history of the game.
It is actually quite sad to see what has happened to both players over the past few years. Neither Tiger Woods nor Phil Mickelson will be playing at The Open in two weeks’ time – the third consecutive major when both players have been missing from the field.
Their days at the top of the game are firmly in the rearview mirror now, but at the start of the century, they were two of the biggest sports stars in the world.
PGA Tour players roasted Phil Mickelson after he revealed Tiger Woods’ issue with him
There is a fascinating excerpt in Alan Shipnuck’s book: Phil: The Rip-Roaring (and Unauthorised!) Biography of Golf’s Most Colourful Superstar, highlighting how Woods had one issue with Mickelson during their competitive days.
“In February 2003, Mickelson finally clapped back, telling one of the golf magazines, “In my mind, Tiger and I don’t have issues between us. Well, maybe one. He hates that I can fly it past him now [off the tee]. He has a faster swing speed than I do, but he has inferior equipment.”
“Strictly speaking, Mickelson wasn’t wrong: Woods had chosen not to max out the latest space-age technology, using a ball that spun more (and thus didn’t carry as far) and a 43.5-inch, steel-shafted driver when most of his peers had embraced longer, lighter graphite shafts. This setup cost Woods distance but gave him more control and allowed him to shape the ball more effectively, a good trade in his eyes.
“What Phil said was funny because it was true,” says Nick Faldo. “That Nike driver Tiger was using was horrendous.”
“But that’s nuance. Mickelson got barbecued in the press and the locker room for being so uppity, given that at the time Woods led him 8–0 in career major championship victories. Tiger relished every second of the backlash. “That was just Phil being Phil,” he said, and he didn’t mean it as a compliment. “He was trying to be a smart aleck, and in this case it didn’t work.”
Phil Mickelson was absolutely right with his comments about Tiger Woods
The fact is that Mickelson was actually right in what he said.
And in fairness, what the 56-year-old said was actually a compliment to Tiger.
In his prime, the 15-time major champion possessed a faster ball speed and clubhead speed than pretty much every other player on the PGA Tour, aside from perhaps John Daly.
Mickelson admitted that the only reason he was longer than Woods was because his equipment was far superior to his rival’s.
So what’s the problem? Why did PGA Tour players have such an issue with Mickelson’s supposedly ‘uppity’ comments?
It does seem strange that Mickelson’s comments drew so much criticism. Maybe they were just completely misinterpreted.
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