TROON, Scotland – Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson at least acknowledged each other earlier this week when they were spotted practicing side-by-side at Royal Troon ahead of The Open Championship.
Mickelson confirmed Saturday that he and Woods greeted each other on the driving range as they hit balls into neighboring tees, but were too busy with their respective preparations for a lengthy chat.
“We said hello,” Mickelson said after finishing with a 72 in the third round of the Open, where he made the cut at age 54. “Yeah, we said hello, but we were both getting ready. It’s not like we’re going to sit there and talk. But we said hello, yeah.”
Archrivals for years, Woods and Mickelson have never been particularly close, but their relationship in recent years has been nonexistent. Mickelson was one of the LIV Golf League’s top recruiters, while Woods has been an active part of the PGA Tour’s policy council that has worked to ward off the Saudi threat and, now, potentially, reunite the game.
Asked whether he and Woods — the two biggest stars of the early 2000s — could work together to solve the tour’s problems, Mickelson said: “I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Mickelson continued. “I’m not involved. I’m not sitting in those rooms. I’m enjoying where I am and what I’m doing and playing. I’ll let other people figure that stuff out.”
Woods’ interaction with Mickelson wasn’t the only time this week he seemed in the mood to make amends. On the practice green, he also took time to congratulate Bryson DeChambeau on his recent U.S. Open victory, the first time in years the former friends had exchanged pleasantries — a tension that had saddened DeChambeau.
“It’s the first communication,” DeChambeau said Thursday, “but I will say that he’s a competitor and I have a lot of respect for him. I’m sure him winning two U.S. Opens definitely helped, I guess, for him to come and congratulate me. I don’t know where he stands, but it was very thoughtful and I appreciated it.”