LAS VEGAS – The bitter feud between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league has taken a shocking and deeply personal turn, as former LIV Golf CEO Greg Norman has launched a verbal grenade at one of the league’s founding figures, Phil Mickelson, accusing him of staggering hypocrisy and betrayal.
In an explosive interview on the *Fire Pit* podcast, Norman revealed that while Mickelson was publicly a face of the rebel tour, he was privately working to undermine it.
“Behind the scenes, Phil was a snake,” Norman claimed, his tone sharp with contempt. “He was taking the money, smiling for the cameras, and then whispering in the ears of other players, encouraging them to abandon ship and go back to the PGA Tour. He was actively trying to poach his own teammates.”
The accusation, if true, paints a picture of duplicity that has sent shockwaves through the golf world. Mickelson, a six-time major champion, was one of the most high-profile defectors to LIV Golf, a move for which he received a reported contract worth over $200 million. He positioned himself as a revolutionary figure, championing the league as a “force for change” and criticizing the PGA Tour’s “obnoxious greed.”
Now, Norman alleges that this was nothing more than a charade.
“The entire time, he was playing both sides,” Norman stated. “He’d be in the team tent, talking about ‘building a legacy,’ and then he’d be on the phone telling other guys that LIV was a ‘sinking ship’ and that they should secure a deal with the Tour before the window closed. It’s the most disgusting act of betrayal I’ve witnessed in over 40 years in professional sports.”
The revelation provides a stunning backdrop to the recent framework agreement between the PGA Tour and LIV’s financial backer, the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF). It suggests that Mickelson may have been attempting to curry favor with the PGA Tour hierarchy in hopes of a favorable reintegration, all while collecting a king’s ransom from the rival league.
Fans and pundits have reacted with a mixture of outrage and disillusionment.
“How can anyone ever trust him again?” tweeted golf analyst Sarah Jensen. “He sold his principles for a paycheck, then tried to sabotage the very people who wrote it. This is a new low.”
Another fan comment summed up the sentiment: “He didn’t care about ‘growing the game.’ He cared about growing his bank account and his own legacy, no matter who he had to stab in the back to do it.”
For “every true sports fan,” as Norman’s accusation implies, this is the ultimate sin. Sports are built on a foundation of competition, loyalty, and a respect for the contest itself. Mickelson’s alleged actions—taking the money while actively working to collapse the organization paying him—are being viewed as a profound violation of that code.
The Mickelson camp has yet to issue a formal response to Norman’s damning claims. But one thing is clear: the civil war in golf has just gotten a lot dirtier, and the legacy of Phil Mickelson, once defined by thrilling victories and a magical short game, is now being recast in the shadow of alleged treachery.
