Golf Legends Who Absolutely HATE Phil Mickelson

Golf Legends Who Absolutely HATE Phil Mickelson

I didn’t play well. I shot three over, but I won the PGA. So, there’s a lot more to winning than just, you know, hitting bombs. You saw him dropping all kinds of bombs off the tea. I mean, just hellacious bombs. Obviously, I I love to play. My parents used to take my clubs away as punishment when I was little. You like to hit bombs? I do. Golf legends calling Phil Mickelson pathetic. For three decades, Phil Mickelson was the people’s champion. the guy who signed every autograph, flashed that million-dollar smile, and played with creativity that had fans jumping out of their seats. He was a Lefty, the charismatic underdog who stood in contrast to Tiger Woods’s cold machine-like dominance. But behind that grin, Phil was systematically burning bridges with nearly every legend he ever stood alongside. And the hate they have for him now is personal, deep, and absolutely brutal. How did the man who seemed to love everyone end up isolated from the very fraternity he fought so hard to join? Why do icons like Tiger Woods, Fred Couples, and Hal Sutton want nothing to do with him? This is the story of how the people’s champion became golf’s most hated man. Let’s start with the most recent explosion because it shows exactly where Phil stands with golf’s establishment today. In early 2025, Fred Couples, one of the most universally beloved figures in professional golf, went on a Seattle radio station and dropped a bomb. Couples claimed he talks to Brooks Kepka all the time. And that Kepka, one of LLV Golf’s biggest stars, wants to leave and return to the PGA Tour. Now, Fred Couples is not someone who stirs up drama for fun. He is the cool uncle of professional golf, the guy everyone respects. So, when he makes a claim like that, people pay attention. Phil Mickelson heard this and absolutely lost it. He went straight to X, formerly Twitter, and fired off an attack on couples. Phil wrote that if what couples said was not true, then Fred damaged a relationship that Brooks cares about. And if it was true, then couples took away Brooks’s control over his own narrative and timeline. Then Phil landed the punch, calling it a lowclass jerk move by Fred. Think about that for a second. Phil Mickelson just publicly called Fred Couples, a master’s champion and one of golf’s most respected elders, a lowclass jerk on social media for the entire world to see. Of course, Phil being Phil, he later deleted the tweet. That has become his signature move over the years. Fire off something aggressive and impulsive. Let it sit long enough to cause maximum damage, then quietly erase it and pretend it never happened. But the damage was absolutely done. The champions dinner at Augusta National, where all the green jacket winners sit together in tradition and respect, is going to be incredibly awkward this year. Couples and Mickelson forced to break bread in the same room after that public attack. The tension will be thick enough to cut with a wedge. And this was not even the first time couples went after Phil. Back in 2022, when Mickelson made his big move to LA golf and started publicly criticizing the PGA Tours greed, couples did not hold back his feelings. He called Phil a nutag, not misguided, not mistaken, a nutag. Couples said he did not think he would ever talk to Phil again. And when someone asked why he would even want to, Fred just shrugged. To couples, Phil is not a revolutionary trying to improve the game. He is a traitor who sold his soul to the Saudis for hundreds of millions of dollars and then had the audacity to lecture everyone else about morality and greed. That kind of hypocrisy does not sit well with someone like Fred Couples, who spent his entire career being grateful to the PGA Tour for the life it gave him. Now, let’s talk about the rivalry that defined an era. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. For 20 years, they were marketed as the big two. Tiger was the assassin, cold, and disciplined. Phil was the artist, creative, and wild. But they did not like each other. Behind the scenes, their relationship was a cold war built on completely different philosophies. Tiger viewed golf as a discipline requiring total dedication. He trained like a Navy Seal and approached every round like a military operation. Phil was the gambler, relying on feel and taking risks. To Tiger, Phil was undisiplined and lacked the killer instinct. And Phil knew it. The numbers back this up. In the early part of their careers, Tiger absolutely owned Phil in head-to-head matchups. The dominance was so complete that even Phil, who loves to rewrite history to make himself look better, had to admit it recently. Phil said Tiger owned him in the early part of their careers, but then claimed he owned Tiger in the second half and that their head-to-head record is now dead even. classic Phil Mickelson taking a rivalry that was historically lopsided in Tiger’s favor and trying to salvage some equality from it by bending the truth just enough to make himself look better. The reality is Tiger dominated their rivalry when it mattered most and Phil knows it. But the real breaking point came at the 2004 Ryder Cup. Hal Sutton was captain that year and he came up with what seemed like a brilliant strategy. He decided to pair the number one and number two players in the world together for the opening matches. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, the two biggest names in golf, an unstoppable force. On paper, it made perfect sense. Two generational talents combining their skills to crush the competition. In reality, it turned into a disaster that people still talk about two decades later. Here is what happened behind the scenes. Just days before the RDER Cup, the most important team event in professional golf, Phil signed a massive endorsement deal with Callaway Golf. He switched from titleist equipment to Callaway. Now, to a casual fan watching at home, that might not sound like a big deal. But to a professional golfer, and especially to Tiger Woods, it was an unforgivable act of negligence and selfishness. The golf ball is the single most important piece of equipment a player uses. It affects everything. Spin rates, launch angles, distance control, feel around the greens. Changing balls days before the biggest team event in golf is like a quarterback deciding to switch to a completely different football the day before the Super Bowl. It is reckless, unprofessional, and puts your team at risk. The RDER Cup format includes something called forsomes, which is alternate shot. That means Tiger and Phil had to play the exact same ball. Tiger played a Nike ball. Phil now played a Callaway ball. One of them had to completely adjust to the other’s equipment with essentially zero preparation time. And Tiger Woods was absolutely furious about it. You could see the rage in his body language throughout the entire match. He stood apart from Phil on the fairways, physically distancing himself. He glared at him between shots. His entire demeanor screamed that he felt like his partner had sold out the team for a fat signing bonus and a paycheck. Years later, in 2016, Phil tried to spin the story and shift the blame. He claimed that Hal Sudden only gave him and Tiger 2 days notice that they would be paired together. And that is why the pairing failed so spectacularly. But here is the problem with Phil’s version of events. The lack of preparation was not because Sutton waited too long to announce the pairing. It was because Phil changed his entire equipment setup for money just days before the event started. Tigers Camp never forgave him for it. For a while, it seemed like maybe they had moved past the tension. In 2018, they did The Match, a $9 million exhibition. They traded banter and looked like two old legends enjoying retirement. Phil called Tiger the greatest of all time. Then came Leave Golf. The Saudi backed league launched in 2022 with Phil Mickelson as the main recruiter. Tiger was reportedly offered close to $800 million. He turned it down flat. Tiger values history and the legacy of the PGA tour above everything. Phil took a reported 200 million and became the face of the defectors. To Tiger, this was the ultimate betrayal. Tiger had spent his entire career cementing his legacy within the PGA Tour, and now Phil was trying to tear it apart. The warmth from the match era evaporated overnight. In 2024 at Royal Trune, Tiger and Phil crossed paths on the driving range. They said hi. That was it. Phil later said they were both preparing, and it is not like they were going to sit there and chat. They are not friends. Tiger has excommunicated Phil from his inner circle completely. Now, back to Hal Sutton. His feud with Phil might be the most personal of all. Sutton was the captain of that disastrous 2004 RDER Cup. For 12 years, he took the criticism and accepted responsibility. That is what captains do. But in 2016, Phil decided to rewrite history. At a press conference, Phil launched an unsolicited attack on Sutton’s captaincy. He said the 2004 team was doomed to fail because Sutton only gave him and Tiger 2 days notice of their pairing. Sutton was blindsided and fired back hard. He pointed out that Phil switched equipment days before the matches. Sutton said he would not have done it. The implication was clear. Phil put money over the team, but Sutton revealed something more damning. After the morning disaster, Phil was benched. Instead of supporting his teammates, Phil went to practice alone. Sutton said Phil let his whole team down. The Rder Cup requires you not to be selfish, and Phil stayed selfish. For Sutton, this was about Phil’s pattern of never taking accountability. When things go wrong, Phil always finds someone else to blame. The captain, the equipment, anyone but himself. Then there is Brooks Kepka. Brooks and Phil are technically teammates in LIIV Golf, but they cannot stand each other. Kepka is the modern jock. Stoic, athletic, nononsense. Phil is the showman who loves to hear himself talk. The tension showed during a press conference when Phil tried to get Brooks to engage in promotional banter about their 2021 PGA Championship matchup. Cocoa looked visibly annoyed like he was tolerating an embarrassing uncle. The real friction came during the Fred Couples situation. When Couple said Cupka wanted to leave, Phil jumped to Brooks’s defense with that aggressive tweet. But Phil violated a cardinal rule. You do not speak for another player. Kupka values his autonomy and Phil dragging him into a Twitter war probably annoyed him more than couple’s original comments did. And then there is Brandle Shambli, the Golf Channel analyst who has made it his mission to destroy Phil’s reputation. Shambbley views LIIV Golf as sports washing, a way for the Saudi regime to clean up its human rights record, and he views Phil as the chief architect. The feud has played out on Twitter. Shambbley relentlessly attacks Phil’s integrity. Phil eventually blocked Chambbley, but not before firing back, saying Chambbley is softer now than he was as a player. Shambbley challenged Phil to a debate on live television. Phil declined, saying he would only debate on a network not paid for by the PGA Tour. Shambbley attacks from the moral high ground. Phil attacks with what aboutism. The animosity is total. But wait, there is more. Because Phil has also managed to alienate people on an even more personal level. Take Pat Perez, a fellow LV golfer. Perez reportedly despises Mickelson because of an incident at a dinner in 2015. When Perez went to the restroom, Phil allegedly pulled out his phone and showed Perez’s wife, Ashley, a photo of himself that she found offensive. The exact nature of the photo has never been confirmed, but Perez considers it unforgivable. Despite both of them joining Alive Golf and flying on the same planes, Perez has called Phil’s apologies insincere and accused him of only caring about his own pocket. Then there is Billy Walters, the famous sports better who wrote a book revealing the full extent of Phil’s gambling addiction. Walters said Phil wagered over $1 billion and lost 100 million over three decades, but Walter’s hatred goes beyond the money. Walters was convicted of insider trading in 2017 and sent to prison. He claims Phil had evidence that could have exonerated him, but refused to testify to protect his own reputation. Walters wrote that all Phil had to do was publicly say it, but he refused. The outcome cost Walters his freedom. While Walters was in prison, his daughter committed suicide, and he still believes he could have saved her if he had been on the outside. Walters also revealed that Phil tried to bet $400,000 on the US team to win the 2012 RDER Cup, an event Phil was playing in. Walters says he furiously rejected the bet, asking Phil if he had lost his mind. That allegation, if true, is a betrayal of the sports integrity at the highest level. It is the kind of thing that makes players like Tiger and Sutton view Phil not just as annoying, but as a genuine threat to the game’s legitimacy. Even VJ Singh has a grudge. At the 2005 Masters, Singh complained that Phil’s metal spikes were damaging the Greens. Phil felt Singh was trying to rattle him, so he confronted Singh in the locker room during a rain delay. The exchange was heated with reports that they had to be separated. Phil told Singh he was disappointed in him. Singh, or possibly Fred Couples, who was intervening, reportedly called Phil something unprintable. This incident solidified a dislike between two top players of the era. Sing, who came from poverty and worked his way up, saw Phil’s country club upbringing and lack of consideration as pure entitlement. So, where does all this hate come from? What is the common thread? The answer lies in a nickname Phil earned back in the 1990s, Fig Jam. It stands for a phrase that starts with the letter F, then I’m good. Just ask me. That nickname captures everything about Phil that drives his peers crazy. It is the profound arrogance hidden behind the A shucks grin. While fans saw a player who loved the gallery, other players saw a guy who loved the mirror. Kevin Kizner told a story that perfectly illustrates the exhausting experience of being Phil’s teammate. During the 2017 President’s Cup, Phil was struggling with his game. He told Kizner that every time he hit a shot, he needed Ker to face him with his belly because all of Ker’s energy comes from his belly. And Phil could pull that energy before every shot. Kizner tells the story with a laugh now, but imagine being in that moment. Imagine having to stand in a specific spot so Phil can absorb your belly energy. For nononsense guys like Tiger or Brooks, that kind of pseudospiritual narcissism is insufferable. The thing is, Phil has achieved everything a golfer could dream of. Six major championships, Hall of Fame induction, a fortune that exceeds a billion dollars. But the cost of that success has been the systematic alienation of nearly everyone he competed against. He is estranged from Tiger Woods, the only equal he ever had. He is loathed by Hal Sutton and Fred Couples, the captains and guardians of the game. He is viewed with suspicion by Brooks Cupka, his current ally. He is hated by Pat Perez and Billy Walters for personal betrayals. He is the target of a moral crusade by Brandell Chamblé. The hate for Phil Mickelson is not simple jealousy. It is the result of a 30-year pattern of behavior that prioritized self-interest above everything else. Whether it was changing equipment before the Rder Cup to cash a check, gambling on the integrity of the game, or defecting to a rival league funded by a controversial regime, Phil has consistently chosen himself over the collective. And in doing so, he has become the wealthiest, most successful pariah in the history of professional golf. But here’s the thing you cannot ignore. Despite all the burned bridges and all the hate from his peers, Phil Mickelson remains one of the most talented and influential players the game has ever seen. His six majors, his creativity, his connection with fans, those things are real. He brought excitement to the sport in ways that few players ever have. He made golf fun to watch. He signed those autographs. He flashed that smile and millions of fans loved him for it. Phil Mickelson is a legend, even if the other legends cannot stand him. He stands alone on an island of his own making, admired by the masses, but deeply disliked by the men who know him best. And maybe that is the ultimate price of being the people’s champion. You win the hearts of the fans, but you lose the respect of your peers. In the end, Phil got exactly what he wanted. He got rich. He got famous. He got his place in history. He just had to sacrifice the fraternity to get there. So, what do you think? Was Phil justified in his decisions? Or did he betray the values of the game? Drop your thoughts in the comments below. And if you want more stories about the hidden feuds and controversies in professional sports, make sure to hit that subscribe button. There is a whole lot more where this came from. Lot more.

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Golf legends calling Phil Mickelson pathetic. For three decades, Phil Mickelson was the People’s Champion. The guy who signed every autograph, flashed that million dollar smile, and played with creativity that had fans jumping out of their seats. He was Lefty, the charismatic underdog who stood in contrast to Tiger Woods’ cold machine like dominance. But behind that grin, Phil was systematically burning bridges with nearly every legend he ever stood alongside. And the hate they have for him now is personal, deep, and absolutely brutal.