Phil Mickelson daggers Rory McIlroy: "They'd have to deal with all his BS!"

Rory McIlroy would be a perfect fit for LIV Golf but nobody would 'put up with his BS', according to six-time major champion Phil Mickelson.

Ben Smith

03 Jun 2023

Phil Mickelson daggers Rory McIlroy: "They'd have to deal with all his BS!"

Rory McIlroy would be perfect for LIV Golf but no team would have him because 'they'd have to deal with all his BS', according to Phil Mickelson.

McIlroy, 34, made the claim his head was 'full of clutter' after getting himself back into contention at the Memorial on the PGA Tour.

According to McIlroy, he was struggling to find a balance between being a father, husband, de-facto chief of the PGA Tour and a golfer.

He started the year off with a bang, winning in Dubai, but noticed the off-course stuff was creeping into his game.

Asked how 'empty' his head is on the course these days, McIlroy's response was simply to offer a 'no comment'.

Though he did say:

"I think these things were creeping in at the end of 2022, probably. And again, that's why it was -- you know, we have all been advocating for an off-season and there's certain reasons why guys want -- it's very hard to try to play your best golf when you're really thinking about your golf swing.

"So that off-season time would be nice to work on your mechanics and your fundamentals so that you've got those sort of bedded in so that you can sort of roll going into the bulk of the season. I didn't really feel like I had the necessary time to do that over the -- you want to take a little bit of time off over the holidays, get yourself back into it.

"So it's just -- my reluctancy to work on -- like I know it's been creeping in, but reluctancy to work on it was more to do with the fact of how much golf we had coming up and just not really wanting to be thinking about my golf swing a ton."

Mickelson watched the clip of McIlroy making these comments about having an off-season and suggested the Northern Irishman would be a perfect fit for the breakaway tour.

See here:

Mickelson previously claimed that LIV Golf's 14-event schedule offers the perfect preparation for the four major championships.

McIlroy was asked about this comment before the Memorial where he explained PGA Tour members only have to play a minimum of 15 events per season.

"It's a flawed argument," McIlroy said.

| Rory McIlroy has explained why he hasn't changed his stance on European LIV Golf players at the Ryder Cup and the efforts he is making to achieve a better work/life balance.
"I want Erica and Poppy to actually know who I am." pic.twitter.com/3uwQyjK1nq
— GolfMagic (@GolfMagic) May 31, 2023

Mickelson and McIlroy have an interesting history. When Mickelson went into his self-imposed exile last year, McIlroy said he didn't want to 'kick a guy' while he was down but slammed the six-time major champ.

Memorably, McIlroy described Mickelson's comments about Saudi Arabia as 'naive, selfish, egotistical and ignorant'.

He was also filmed saying 'F you, Phil' in the Netflix documentary Full Swing.

Watched our latest YouTube video?