Phil Mickelson decides on major return amid LIV | Golf News

Phil Mickelson’s return to major championship golf can have to wait a while longer.

Mickelson, who has missed all but one LIV Golf event this season, announced he won’t compete in the PGA Championship later this month despite initially being listed in the sector by the PGA of America. The 55-year-old has a lifetime exemption into the event after successful the 2021 version at Kiawah Island, a triumph which made him the oldest major champion in historical past.

The choice marks the second major Mickelson has pulled out of this 12 months after he withdrew from the Masters, casting doubt on his hopes of competing in golf’s largest occasions in the future.

“I wish I could. I can’t unfortunately. I’m hoping to play the rest of the year after that, but I honestly don’t know,” Mickelson said about taking part in in this 12 months’s PGA Championship, per Flushing It.

He was already set to skip LIV Golf’s next event at Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C. course this week, and despite his acknowledged need to return to the course after the PGA Championship, it stays to be seen whether or not that will come to fruition, given the awful future of the tour.

After the PGA Championship, the six-time major champion just isn’t exempt from either of the remaining two majors this 12 months – the US Open and The Open Championship – or any other PGA Tour event. If he does tee it up again in 2026, it is going to seemingly be for HyFlyers GC on LIV Golf.

The only LIV event he has performed in this 12 months was in South Africa in March, when he completed tied for forty eighth out of 57 gamers. The HyFlyers, a workforce Mickelson captains, presently ranks eleventh out of 13 groups in the LIV Golf standings.

Even if Mickelson does return to the course this 12 months or the major championships in 2027, his hopes of contending for a title seem to be slim.

Since his shock victory at the 2021 PGA Championship, where he outlasted Brooks Koepka and Louis Oosthuizen by two strokes, Mickelson has missed the cut at 10 of 16 occasions. Other than his T2 end at the 2023 Masters, his best end result was a T43 end at Augusta National in 2024.