Phil Mickelson has reunited with one of his former PGA Tour rivals, with the LIV Golf star set to feature alongside Wesley Bryan as part of a YouTube video for the Bryan Bros.
Mickelson infamously ended his 30-year relationship with the PGA Tour in 2022, signing a mega-money deal with the LIV league. Since then it has been clear that there is no love lost between the six-time major winner and his former Tour, who he has been critical of the circuit in the wake of his move.
Despite the previous bad blood, Mickelson has teamed up with one of the Tour’s members in Bryan, after the Bryan Bros YouTube channel teased a match-up to their followers on Sunday.
The Bryan Bros shared a photo of the two stars on social media along with the caption: “Tomorrow12 PM EST. Who ya got?” with the video being released on Monday. In the replies, fans shared the excitement, with Bryan himself also taking to the comments to hail Mickelson.
“It was sooooo unbelievably cool to tee it up with a living legend!,” Bryan said of the HyFlyers captain on X. It is yet more evidence of the ever-growing YouTube golf scene, which has seen Mickelson’s fellow LIV star Bryson DeChambeau gain a whopping 1.66 million subscribers on the platform.
It appears moving to the LIV setup has given players more freedom to partake in media duties more freely, a problem Mickelson raised when explaining his reasons for leaving the PGA Tour almost three years ago. Its not public knowledge, all that goes on, Mickelson told Golf Digest at the time.
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But the players dont have access to their own media. If the tour wanted to end any threat [from Saudi or anywhere else], they could just hand back the media rights to the players. But they would rather throw $25 million here and $40 million there than give back the roughly $20 billion in digital assets they control.
“Or give up access to the $50-plus million they make every year on their own media channel. There are many issues, but that is one of the biggest. For me personally, its not enough that they are sitting on hundreds of millions of digital moments. They also have access to my shots, access I do not have.
“They also charge companies to use shots I have hit. And when I did The Matchthere have been five of themthe tour forced me to pay them $1 million each time. For my own media rights. That type of greed is, to me, beyond obnoxious. Mickelson is also set to feature alongside another YouTuber in Grant Horvat, with the pair teaming up to take on other notable pairings from the sport in the New Year.
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