Phil Mickelson's BMW Championship Withdrawal Is What Gives Golfers a Bad Name

Phil Mickelson was not a fan of the FedEx Cup schedule right from the start.

Apparently, being forced to play golf for four weeks in a row with a total of $67 million up for grabs was a bit too much for Lefty.

Mickelson made his objections known two weeks ago during the Deutsche Bank Championship, as reported by Doug Ferguson of The Associated Press, via GolfChannel.com:

"

I'm in a bit of predicament, and the predicament is this, the tour does not own their four or five largest revenue-producing events. We don't own the majors or the Ryder Cup. The FedEx Cup is really our flagship event. As a player that has received so much from the PGA Tour, there's an obligation there to support the FedEx Cup. So I want to play and I want to there.

The tough thing for me is I don't ever play a month in a row outside the West Coast where I'm living at home.

"

Mickelson went on to say, ''I may not be in next week. I may not be in the Tour Championship, and I may not have to worry about playing four in a row. So we'll see.''

Stop the presses.

Playing golf for four hours per day, four days per week and four weeks in a row with $67 million up for grabs must violate some kind of labor law.

Certainly, one would expect a formal investigation to be launched into the backbreaking schedule the PGA Tour is running during late August and early September.

Four hours per day, four days per week and four consecutive weeks. Oh, the horror.

The majority of baseball players are on the field virtually every day for seven months of the year.

Basketball players play about four games per week for six straight months.

Professional hockey players...well...it feels like they are on the ice virtually every day of the year. The playoffs alone seem to last longer than the entire PGA Tour season.

But let’s forget about professional athletes and take into account the lives of the general working public.

The average American worker puts in at least 40 hours per week for 50 weeks of the year, and 99.9 percent of people earn far less than Mickelson while doing so.

Many of those hardworking nine-to-fivers shelled out $75 per ticket to bring their families to the BMW Championship, and they expected to see Mickelson there.

Mickelson, on the other hand, apparently thought it was more important to begin his three-week vacation a couple of days early. He couldn't be bothered to play two more rounds of golf during the PGA Tour’s grueling and unreasonable four-week stretch of FedEx Cup tournaments.

Just days after once again telling the media that he was “not real high on playing four in a row,” as reported by Bob Harig of ESPN.com, Mickelson withdrew from the BMW Championship.

He released the following statement during the early morning hours of Saturday, September 6: “My primary goal is to rest and prepare for the Ryder Cup. Without a chance to contend at the Tour Championship, the most important thing for me now is to prepare for the Ryder Cup.”

Golfers, and the game of golf in general, have historically gotten a bad rap for several reasons.

Many believe golf to be a sport that is enjoyed only by the so-called “evil” one-percenters—bankers, Wall Street executives and Fortune 500 CEOs who drink Johnny Walker Black, hack the ball around their ultra-exclusive country clubs and blame their caddies, who are just trying to make a few extra bucks, for every bad shot or misread putt. 

In terms of professional golf, many sports fans have a difficult time viewing middle-aged men walking around in khakis and polo shirts as world-class athletes.

For sports fans who are used to watching the physical specimens gracing our basketball courts, baseball fields and football stadiums, golf falls somewhere between chess and bowling on the athletic spectrum.

In reality, most of the stereotypes about the game of golf and professional golfers are grossly inaccurate.

Most golfers in America play their rounds at public, daily-fee courses. According to the National Golf Foundation, as of 2012, 90 percent of amateur golfers played their rounds at public golf courses.

Similarly, many of the top golfers in the world did not come from wealthy households.

Tiger Woods' father was a military man.

Rory McIlroy’s father was a bartender, and his mother worked extra shifts at the local 3M plant in order to pay for McIlroy to attend golf tournaments.

Ian Poulter paid his bills by working in a pro shop until he was good enough to bring his game out on tour.

Angel Cabrera was introduced to the game while working as a caddie at Cordoba Country Club in Argentina, and he occasionally boxed to earn extra money for his family.

Justin Rose, Jason Day, Bubba Watson and Graeme McDowell certainly didn't come from one what would describe as “one-percent” households.

Labeling professional golfers as children of privilege who happened to fall into privileged lives as adults or likening them to those “one-percenters” hacking the ball around $100,000-per-year country clubs is an incorrect stereotype.

That being said, every once in a while, a professional golfer will do or say something that reminds people of those stereotypes.

And that is precisely what Michelson did when he decided to withdraw from the BMW Championship after 36 holes because he felt the PGA Tour was making him play too much golf over a four-week period.

Sports fans have very little sympathy for a so-called athlete complaining about having to play four consecutive weeks of golf.

And the general public has very little sympathy for a man complaining about having to work 20 hours per week for four consecutive weeks while earning millions of dollars.

Phil Mickelson complaining about a “tough” schedule and then taking matters into his own hands by withdrawing from the BMW Championship with two rounds left to play so he could get a jump-start on his three-week vacation is precisely why many people have negative perceptions of golfers and the game of golf.

So thanks, Lefty, for disappointing those children and their parents, who shelled out $75 per ticket, to come and see you play at Cherry Hills. 

And thanks for bringing all of those stereotypes back to the forefront and validating the mostly incorrect view that professional golfers are nothing more than lazy, overpaid men of privilege that lack any form of true athletic ability.