Defending champion Phil Mickelson will not compete in the PGA Championship next week. The 51-year-old golfer has been sidelined for more than three months after making controversial statements about a new Saudi Arabia-funded tour early this year.
“We were just informed that Phil Mickelson has withdrawn from the PGA Championship,” the organizers of the second major of the year said on Twitter on Friday. “Phil is the defending champion and he should have been allowed to participate.”
Mickelson became the oldest major winner in history last year when he won the PGA Championship for the second time in his career. Last month, the American skipped the Masters in Augusta for the first time since 1994, the major he won three times.
‘Lefty’ last played a tournament at the end of January. He has since been on hiatus after receiving much criticism for an interview in February in which he said he was considering playing on a new tour funded by controversial Saudi Arabia.
“Those are scary bastards,” Mickelson told journalist Alan Shipnuck about Saudi Arabia. “They have a very bad record of human rights, yet I see this new tour as a one-time opportunity to reshape the greedy PGA Tour.”
Mickelson later apologized for his comments.