STERLING, Va. — Six-time major champion Phil Mickelson, who was originally listed in the field for next week’s PGA Championship, has withdrawn from the competition due to a “personal health matter with his family,” the tournament announced Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Mickelson, 55, skipped the Masters in early April as his family navigated what he described then as a “personal health matter.”<\/p>\n
As a result of Mickelson’s withdrawal, Max Homa\u00a0will now be in the updated 154-player field when the PGA Championship tees off May 14-17 at Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
There are two remaining spots reserved for the winners of this week’s PGA Tour events — the Truist Championship and ONEFlight Myrtle Beach Classic — if they haven’t otherwise qualified.<\/p>\n
As expected, four-time PGA Championship winner Tiger Woods isn’t included in the field. It is believed that he entered a treatment program in Switzerland following his arrest in March on suspicion of DUI.<\/p>\n
Mickelson, a two-time PGA Championship winner, has competed in only one of LIV Golf’s six events this season; he tied for 48th in South Africa on March 22. He then withdrew from the last LIV event in Mexico City in mid-April.<\/p>\n
While Mickelson hasn’t publicly commented on LIV Golf’s future since Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund announced it was pulling its funding after this season, LIV Golf CEO Scott O’Neil said he spoke with Mickelson on Monday.<\/p>\n
“I just want to be really sensitive,” O’Neil said. “We all have things going on in our lives that are personal, and his is. I have a lot of love and respect for him as a human being, and certainly have respect for him for what he’s accomplished in his career. His presence is really helpful. I hope he comes back soon.<\/p>\n
“I miss his presence at events. He carries a ton of weight in every room he walks. That’s not only because he’s a six-time major champion, but he’s got gravitas. It comes with something that’s way beyond winning. He’s one of the guys helping me, of course.”<\/p>\n
The PGA of America granted a special exemption to LIV Golf captain Dustin Johnson, who is ranked 468th in the Official World Golf Ranking. The two-time major champion has qualified for 68 consecutive majors, missing only three because of injuries or personal reasons.<\/p>\n
“Very excited,” Johnson said from LIV Golf Virginia, “I want to play in all the majors. I feel like my game is still good enough to compete with everyone and still can win. The PGA was nice enough to give me an invitation. So yeah, I’m very, very happy and thankful for that.”<\/p>\n
Scottie Scheffler is the defending champion at the second major of the year, which returns to Aronimink for the first time since Gary Player won in 1972.<\/p>\n
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STERLING, Va. — Six-time major champion Phil Mickelson, who was originally listed in the field for next week’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-652036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}