Phil Mickelson’s awful, no-good, rotten week continued Wednesday as the golf superstar lost yet another sponsor.
Beer company Heineken Light has ended its Amstel Light sponsorship with Mickelson after the golfer’s controversial remarks about a Saudi Arabian-backed golf league, according to Michael McCarthy at Front Office Sports.
The decision to drop Mickelson comes a day after one of his biggest sponsors, KPMG, also dropped him, though that was billed as a mutual decision.
Mickelson has made headlines for all the wrong reasons due in large part to his business relationship with the Saudis, who are (were?) backing a new golf league. Mickelson, who was lined up to make millions, openly admitted to using the league as leverage to impact some sort of change on the PGA Tour. It further blew up in his face last week, though, when golf writer Alan Shipnuck released quotes from Mickelson that will appear in an upcoming book about the legendary golfer.
The six-time major winner, in a half-hearted apology Tuesday, made sure to claim the conversation with Shipnuck was off the record, something the writer obviously refuted. As such, Shipnuck ran the quote in which Mickelson called the Saudis “scary mother (expletives)” while also excusing away their checkered human rights past because he ultimately wanted to use them to change the Tour.
So, here we are, with sponsors starting to leave Mickelson, once considered the most popular golfer on the planet not named Tiger Woods. It will be interesting to see whether Callaway, Mickelson’s gear sponsor, will follow suit.
“A source at Callway — where Mickelson has a lifetime contract — says KPMG’s top executives have been in touch to inquire how Callaway is going to move forward and that might affect KPMG’s decision,” Shipnuck wrote Tuesday before the KPMG news came down.
Whether Callaway goes the same avenue might be the biggest sponsor-related domino yet to fall in this reputation-tarnishing ordeal for Mickelson.
