LIV Golf pro explains HATRED for Phil Mickelson over "unforgivable act"
Pat Perez has weighed in on why he "can't forgive" Phil Mickelson and expressed his strong opinion on the PGA Tour in representing themselves and not the players.
LIV Golf Team Championship co-winner Pat Perez revealed Phil Mickelson crossed a line that is "uncrossable and unforgivable," saying he was hurt by the six-time major champion's actions.
Speaking to Claude Harmon on the Son of a Butch podcast, Perez used the term "different hate" when describing his relationship with Mickelson whose controversial words to Alan Shipnuck earlier in 2022 stoked controversy surrounding what became the LIV Golf Tour.
Perez, 46, referred back to his interview with Colt Knost on the Subpar Show by Golf.com in March. During this show, he said Mickelson tried to get players to sign for the Saudi-backed series "behind everyone's back" in order to get a "big golden paycheque."
Since then, Perez has played in seven LIV Golf events and despite not making an individual top-10, he earned over $8 million from both the individual and team leaderboards with 4 Aces.
The three-time PGA Tour winner neglected to describe how and why he feels hatred for Lefty, but he also admitted his fellow American almost ruined LIV Golf's launch before it started with his infamous 'scary mother******' comments back in February.
"When it comes to Phil, I have a different hate for Phil than most people. People won't know the story, I'm not going to go into the story again, but Phil crossed the line with me that is just uncrossable and unforgivable.
"He knows that he screwed up. He apologised for the accident, but I cannot forgive him for it because I've known Phil for a long, long time. I've known the guy forever.
"And the fact that when he made this action, not only was it - he had intentions of doing it. He was already - he knew it was going to happen before it happened and when he did it - I was hurt for one. I was like 'how can this guy do this?'
"I didn't really go into it on Colt's thing (Colt Knost), but I told Colt and said 'you've cut out all the reasons of why I don't like Phil' - the other side of the coin is that everyone thought that Phil was greedy. No, he wasn't greedy.
"If anybody knows what's going on, Phil has been in the top 50 his whole career. He's been involved in all these teams and all the things that are going on on the Tour. He is very knowledgeable about what is going on on the Tour and he voiced his displeasure at what is going on on the Tour."
It is fair to say that Perez has been specifically targeted with media attention since joining the rebel league commissioned by Greg Norman. As part of the 4 Aces team, they won four consecutive events in the season which earned him $3 million.
Add this to the $16 million pot that was divided among him, Dustin Johnson, Talor Gooch and Patrick Reed at the team finale in Miami and his earnings were under even more scrutiny with the lack of correlation with his individual finishes.
When he first made the switch, he said joining LIV was like "winning the lottery" and he was tired of being on the road. He said "everybody could shut up" at Trump National Doral when he carded a 2-under-par 70.
He was one of the initial 11 players to join the antitrust lawsuit against the PGA Tour, but he has since pulled out after having "no ill feelings towards the Tour." However, he certainly doesn't believe the American circuit is perfect.
"He (Phil) is 100% correct in the fact that the way the Tour is the way they are. They are for themselves, they are not for the players. They are not for growing anybody else except their own pockets," Perez added.
"They all call themselves a non-profit (organisation) yet all they have is profit, so how does that work? The thing about what I was saying is Phil, yeah, Phil almost ruined the thing completely because of his comments about the deal.
"Then guys got scared and were like 'well this isn't going to work now, Phil's obviously turned, he's saying this and this'. It couldn't have been worse timing for the LIV group in that deal.
"But like I said in my interview, I'm behind the Tour because I didn't get an offer. I'd never talked to the LIV group in my entire life and then Tiger was against it - I've always looked up to him, but he wasn't for it. But I didn't have a deal.
"Like I said, you offer me a good deal and I'm going because at this point in my life, at 46, you offer me enough cash - and I don't have to play as much anymore, I'm out of there.
"Phil and I had a little talk, funnily enough, the week before that all happened. Before all those comments came out, right after I did the podcast with Colt was when I think Phil was starting to get word on things that I knew.
"It's not that I was really against or for it, I didn't know enough about it and I wasn't even considering it because I didn't have an offer and I didn't talk to anybody.
"Other than you and DJ (Dustin Johnson), that's the only reason I knew that something may have come in my direction.
"But the whole thing about me wearing out Phil has way more to do with the interaction or problem we had as opposed to him trying to beat up the Tour and going after a lot of money. That's what needs to be clarified."
