AUGUSTA, Ga. — Augusta National Golf Club chairman Fred Ridley said three-time Masters champion Phil Mickelson pulled out of this year’s tournament and was eligible to compete if he wanted to.
Mickelson notified Ridley, via text message, in late February or early March that he wouldn’t be playing in this week’s Masters.
“I would like to say we did not disinvite Phil,” Ridley said during a news conference Wednesday. “Phil is a three-time Masters champion and is invited in that category and many other categories; he’s the defending PGA champion.
“Phil reached out to me … and let me know that he did not intend to play. That was by way of a text, and I thanked him for his courtesy in letting me know. I told him that we certainly appreciated that and, you know, told him that I was certainly willing to discuss that further with him if he’d like. He thanked me, and we had a very cordial exchange.”
Mickelson, who last year became the oldest major champion at 50 with his unexpected victory at the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island, South Carolina, hasn’t played in a PGA Tour event in more than two months. He last played at the Farmers Insurance Open in late January and missed the cut.
On Feb. 17, author Alan Shipnuck posted Mickelson’s controversial comments about the PGA Tour and a proposed breakaway league being funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the nation’s sovereign wealth fund, which has an estimated worth of $500 billion.
