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ESPN Daily

Phil Mickelson, Saudi Arabia, and the Battle for the Future of Golf

ESPN Daily

ESPN

Sports

4.63.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 June 2022

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The PGA Tour has long been the gold standard of professional golf, rooted in tradition and nostalgia. But that may all be changing with the arrival of LIV Golf, the flashy new league with an unlimited bankroll thanks to its funding by the government of Saudi Arabia. ESPN’s Kevin Van Valkenberg was in London this weekend to cover LIV’s inaugural tournament, and he joins us to describe what he saw, and where the league…and golf’s moral compass…might go from here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

ESPN Daily is presented by Supercuts, the smarter, easier way to get a haircut.

0:06.9

It's not just any haircut.

0:08.8

It's supercuts.

0:10.4

Kevin Van Valkenberg, you have been tracking the protagonist of the existential crisis

0:16.6

that golf has been enveloped by over the last several days.

0:21.3

You were with Phil Mikkelsen in London at the Liv Golf Tournament the first ever, which

0:26.3

we're here to talk about, but we also just watched him give his first press conference.

0:31.0

Here in America in months at the country club, the host of this week's US Open and Brookline

0:36.2

Massage Shoesits, my first question to you is just, are you surprised that Phil Mikkelsen

0:42.8

ditched his leather jacket?

0:44.4

Well, Pablo, in the vein of Phil Mikkelsen, the way he answered questions today, I'll

0:49.4

say I respect your question.

0:51.0

I've just so much respect for it, but I think I'm going to not address that at the moment.

0:55.8

I know that many of you have strong, well, many people have strong opinions, emotions about

1:03.0

my choice to go forward with Liv Golf, and I understand, and I respect that.

1:10.7

Well, I mean, it was such a thing because he shows up.

1:14.6

He's also looking like a midlife crisis in London, right?

1:17.6

That is, which is appropriate, I suppose, for what golf is also battling with, but he

1:21.5

shows up in his Harris-Lick back in his leather jacket and he has a scruffy beard.

1:26.4

How would you describe what Phil was looking and sounding like a couple days later here

1:32.2

at the US Open Presser on Monday?

1:34.8

A little more polished than we saw in London.

...

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