Phil Mickelson has revealed the harm and hurt his gambling addiction has caused to those closest to him after after betting guru Billy Walters claimed the LIV golfer had placed wagers of more than one billion dollars in the last 30 years.

The 53-year-old six-time major winner opened up about his addiction in a lengthy social media post, claiming it affected those he cared about “in ways I wasn’t aware or could fully understand.”

Mickelson wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “I won’t be betting this year because I crossed the line of moderation and into addiction which isn’t any fun at all.

“The money wasn’t ever the issue since our financial security has never been threatened, but I was so distracted I wasn’t able to be present with the ones I love and caused a lot of harm. This lack of presence has been so hurtful.

“‘You’re here but you’re not with us’, is something I’ve been told often throughout my addiction. It affected those I care about in ways I wasn’t aware or could fully understand.”

Mickelson also paid tribute to wife Amy for her support and urged gamblers not to “confuse your enablers as friends like I did.”

He said: “It’s like a hurricane is going on outside and I’m isolated in a shelter oblivious to what was happening.

“When I came out there was so much damage to clean up that I just wanted to go back inside and not deal with it.

“If you ever cross the line of moderation and enter into addiction, hopefully you won’t confuse your enablers as friends like I did.

“Hopefully you won’t have to deal with these difficult moments publicly so others can profit off you like I have.

“But hopefully you will have a strong and supportive partner who is willing to help you through being your worst self, and through your worst moments, like I have in Amy.

“She has loved me and supported me through my darkest and most difficult times. I couldn’t have gotten through this without her.”

Mickelson added: “Because of her love, support and commitment, I’m back on track to being the person I want to be.

“After many years of receiving professional help, not gambling, and being in recovery from my addictions, I’m now able to sit still, be present in the moment and live each day with an inner calm and peace.

“I still have a lot of cleaning up to do with those I love the most, but I’m doing it slowly and as best I can.”

LIV Golf introduced live ‘drone tracing’ technology during the ongoing LIV Golf Team Championship. This technology was utilized on the first day of the event at Trump National Doral on Friday, October 20.

The Flushing It shared a clip of the quarterfinal match between Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson on X (formerly called X), which featured a drone shot including the ‘tracer.’

While the clip was intended to showcase the broadcasters’ innovation, it also highlighted the relative paucity of spectators at the Saudi-backed circuit’s final event. Only a handful of people were visible at Doral in the drone shot, and fans didn’t miss the chance to criticize LIV Golf on social media.

The finale of the LIV Golf season is upon the sporting world. The eight teams fought it out during the exciting quarterfinals that took place on Friday in a bid to keep their chances alive at the Team Championship title in Miami. And at the center of attention was none other than Phil Mickelson.

However, the first day was a bumpy one for ‘Lefty’ as he saw himself barely surviving against Brooks Koepka and his team. But, as a true athlete does, he was quick to get up, dust himself off, and accept his “mistakes,” something he feels he should “clean up!”

Phil Mickelson shares his struggles in the match against Brooks Koepka

The first day of the Team Championships has proved to be nothing short of a banger as Smash GC and HyFlyers GC duked it out on the course to take home a cut of the $50 million prize pool. Although the Mickelson-led team was able to pull off a win against the formers, the captain saw himself losing out on the singles against Koepka 6&4. And the 53-year-old skipper had a lot to say about the same.

In a press conference, the 45X PGA Tour champ admitted his mistakes as he mentioned how his “speed was off a bit.” Although he managed to hit birdies on the 5th and 6th holes to make a small comeback from his 3-down score on the 4th hole, the 6X major winner couldn’t capitalize on the same.

Continuing on his response, the 2021 PGA Championship winner pointed out the bogey he made “from the middle of the fairway on 7” as nothing short of a mistake. However, the veteran went ahead to display his fighting spirit as he said, “I just can’t make those mistakes against a guy like Brooks or against a guy like DJ, so I’m going to have to clean that up.”

Although HyFlyers GC managed a win against Koepka’s team 1-2, it might have been Mickelson who got a wake-up call through his singles loss. However, one can’t blame the 53-year-old as he had raised his concerns over the match during an interview ahead of the tournament.

Mickelson on his matchup with Koepka

After being matched up with Smash GC, the 45X PGA Tour champ was quick to mention how Koepka has been one of the best players in the game this year. Moreover, referring to his achievements in 2023, including the major victory, ‘Lefty’ hilariously stated how there were a lot of people he would rather play against other than the 2023 PGA Championship winner.

Nevertheless, the respect that the former had for the 33-year-old was amazing as he admitted to enjoying the game whenever he played against Koepka. Well, his hunch came out right as he suffered a loss in the quarterfinal singles match against the 9X PGA Tour winner despite his team coming out on top.

The captain of 4 Aces GC, Dustin Johnson, faced the captain of HyFlyers GC, Phil Mickelson, in the first singles match of the LIV Golf Team Championship’s semifinal on Sunday at the Trump National Doral, Miami.

Johnson defeated Mickelson by a margin of 2 & 1. His team defeated the latter’s team by 2-1 to proceed to the final day of the event, reserving their spot in Tier 1. They will now fight for the $14,000,000 prize money on Sunday.

While the win that Dustin Johnson registered looked smooth, there was an unforgettable moment in the match for the 39-year-old as he shanked his shot on the 15th hole.

Two of the RangeGoats GC’s players came to Johnson and asked about the forgettable shank. At first, Harold Varner III enquired about the shot, to which the American golfer replied by saying that it wasn’t a shank and went up straight right.

However, when Bubba Watson came in and took a jab at Dustin Johnson, he unwillingly accepted it and called it a solid shot. Speaking on the shank, Johnson was quoted by The Palm Beach Report as saying:

Dustin Johnson also commented on his match with Phil Mickelson, saying that he knew what to expect given the two have played quite a lot of golf with each other in the past.

Phil Mickelson has been backed to make a potential return to the PGA Tour in a hunt for “love” by his biographer Alan Shipnuck, if the Tour’s framework agreement with the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia (PIF) is finalised.

The PGA Tour shocked the world of golf in June, after announcing it had reached an agreement with PIF. The Tour had been in an ugly dispute with the Saudi setup for some time, and more closely their new-found rival LIV Golf.

Since the formation of LIV last June, the golfing world has been with the breakaway league able to lure in some of the PGA Tour’s biggest names thanks to its Saudi riches. One man who took the plunge was Mickelson, and it is fair to say he did not leave quietly.

Even before the six-time major winner was an official LIV Golf player, he had already pledged his allegiance to the Saudi-funded series. In an infamous interview with his biographer Shipnuck, Mickelson described those in charge of Saudi Arabia as ‘scary motherf*****s’, referring back to the nation’s poor human rights record, and the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Despite these concerns Mickelson admitted working with the Saudis was an opportunity too good to turn down in a bid to gain ‘leverage’ over the PGA Tour. On the back of his comments ‘Lefty’ went into a state of exile, before breaking his silence months later by officially joining the LIV setup.

Since then he has not held back in his criticism of the Tour on which he had previously spent all of his professional playing career on. If the agreement between the PGA Tour and PIF goes through, it is expected that players from both sides will have the opportunity to compete across both tours, something that felt impossible just six months ago.

In the case of Mickelson, it appears he has already made his bed and lay in it when it comes to a Tour return. Shipnuck however believes there are a handful of PGA Tour events that could well lure the 53-year-old in. Shipnuck told Express US Sports: “On some level, he wouldn’t want to do that [return to the PGA Tour] because he would be supporting this Tour that has demonized him.

“But I’m sure there would be some emotional pull to play in San Diego, his hometown. Play in Phoenix where he essentially went to college. Play Pebble Beach where his grandfather is a caddie, where he won five times and has a lot of friends in the community. I could see Phil wanting to revisit some of his old stomping grounds and feel some of that love again.”

The craving of that crowd love again could well be what pulls Mickelson back in, having seemingly been public enemy No. 1 on the back of the LIV saga. The Mickelson of old was seen at this year’s Masters after his final round surge up the leaderboard saw him once again become a fan favorite at Augusta.

“This year’s Masters was huge to Phil,” Shipnuck added. “He showed up, the reception was very ambivalent, his tension his awkwardness at a place that was always so beloved. By the back nine on Sunday when he made that great charge, making birdies, that was the first time he looked like the old Phil, and you could see how much that admiration meant to him, and he had certainly missed that after being cast as the ‘dark night’ in this story.”

Phil Mickelson didn’t have the best day on the Blue Monster course at Doral. He knew he was in for a tough battle having to go against Brooks Koepka, the reigning PGA Champion and a winner last week at the LIV Golf Jeddah event.

Mickelson even joked about the matchup earlier, saying “Brooks is not the guy I’d choose to play.’’

And it proved to be a tough encounter, as Mickelson quickly went down three holes, battled back to within one, but could never again pull even, eventually losing 6 and 4 on the first day of the LIV Golf Miami Team Championship.

But Mickelson will live to play another day anyway.

That’s because the format at the team championship allowed for his teammates on the squad he captains, the HyFlyers, to bail him out, leading to a semifinals matchup on Saturday in the $50 million season-ending event.

His reward is a match against Dustin Johnson and the top LIV team, the 4Aces.

“The Aces are the strongest team on LIV, they won it last year,’’ Mickelson said. “They’ve led throughout the year. But I’m really proud of my team today and the effort our guys made down the stretch. I’ve got a lot of work to do on my own game, but I’ve got a team that has made this fun. We’re looking forward to the opportunity.’’

Mickelson’s team advanced because teammate Cameron Tringale defeated Koepka’s Smash teammate Jason Kokrak, 2 and 1, while the foursomes team of Brendan Steele and James Piot defeated the Smash team of Chase Koepka and Matthew Wolff, 1 up.

There were three quarterfinals matches on Friday, with two points needed to advance.

There was another upset that saw the Cleeks team, captained by Martin Kaymer, defeat Cam Smith’s Rippers team.

While Kaymer lost to Smith on the first extra hole—after birdies on his final three holes to tie the match—his teammates came through to advance. Richard Bland defeated Marc Leishman, 4 and 3, while Graeme McDowell and Bernd Wiesberger went three extra holes to defeat Matt Jones and Jed Morgan.

That means two of the more prominent captains in LIV Golf—Koepka and Smith—will get Saturday off.

All 12 teams will compete on Sunday but the four who lost Friday—Smash, Majestics, Ripper and Iron Heads—can finish no better than ninth.

The four losing teams on Saturday will be able to do no better than fifth. The four teams that win Saturday will play for the overall team title.

So Saturday’s semifinals matchups will see the 4Aces, captained by Johnson, take on Mickelson’s HyFlyers; the Crushers, captained by Bryson DeChambeau, take on Kaymer’s Cleeks; the Torque, captained by Joaquin Niemann, take on Louis Oosthuizen’s Stinger; and the RangeGoats, captained by Bubba Watson, take on Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs.

In each match, the captains square off, with the same format as Friday. One other singles match and one foursomes match for a total of three points.

With the conclusion of the final LIV Golf individual event in Jeddah, the Saudi circuit players are heading for the Team Championship. It will take place later this month in Miami.

LIV Golf recently shared a video of HyFlyers GC players practising their shots. In a clip shared on X account, Phil Mickelson, captain of HyFlyers, celebrated his teammate’s putt with other teammates and caddies.

As one of his teammates made a birdie putt, the six-time Major champion put his hands in the air and shouted. The LIV Golf League shared the video with a caption, saying:

Fans jumped into the comments section to say Phil Mickelson celebrated as if he bet $500K on his shot. One user commented:

Phil Mickelson is not at all shocked by the ruling handed down by the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR). They declined to allow LIV Golf events any points, so golfers will continue to see their world rankings drop on the rebel tour. This was something many LIV people had hoped for, but those hopes were dashed by the OWGR board.

Trevor Immelman, a pro golfer, said that he would have thought about what was required if world ranking points were something it needed. He said he would’ve done this at the outset to make sure that his theoretical tour did whatever the world-ranking organization required in order to get points. That’s not what LIV did, but it’s not something that shocks Mickelson.

He believes there’s far more at play here than a simple regulations issue. The PGA Tour is one of the premier points-getting leagues in the world, and OWGR does work with them. Nevertheless, the board insisted that it wasn’t personal.

They claimed that the ruling was simply because LIV is too different. The biggest issue is that there’s no barrier to entry. Part of what makes earning points on the PGA Tour so worthwhile is that not everyone can even make the Tour.

That’s not the case for LIV, which is part of the reason their events cannot get points. Mickelson isn’t surprised, but this does mean that Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, and others will not be able to ascend the OWGR leaderboard.