Alan Shipnuck explains first time he ever met Phil Mickelson back in the 90’s | This Week In Golf with Chris McKee on Sauga 960.
So well obviously you have this notorious relationship with Phil mikkelson take me back to the beginning do you remember the first time you met Phil and um what was your relationship like at the start the first time I mean it pro I think it was 1994 the Honda Classic I’d
Have to look it up um yeah you know PHS a complicated character and he’s sort of a master manipulator of the media and so it’s always been an interesting relationship ship it he’s gone out of his way to court a lot of writers you know he takes him out to dinner he’s
Played golf with them I was never kind of part of that um that that inner circle which I think actually served me well you can see things a little more clearly when you keep someone at arms length um uh we had our ups and downs
But um continue to do so he’s just he’s a wild card I mean he’s an unpredictable sort of volatile personality he’s he’s very smart he’s probably not as smart as he thinks he is um and he he um so Bill’s talked his way in out of many
Jams through the years and U continues to do so I mean on some level you know he’s going to be Vindicated by the way this all plays out you know some of his core criticisms of the PGA Tour was that the players didn’t have enough of a say
In their own governance you know that was proven to be very true and they’ve they’ve been working hard behind the scenes to to change that the Tigers and the Patrick klays um you know we felt like the players were not getting paid enough and um that the tour was sitting
On too much money and soon as Liv arrived you know they opened the spigot and the players have their salaries have essentially doubled so I I think you know Phil was right about a lot of things he’s he’s also been wrong on Plenty of them and sometimes it was more
Um how he said it than than what he actually said and it rubbed people the wrong way so he’s a fascinating character I mean I think he’s the most interesting golfer of of our of our you know of this era and continues to be
