Phil Mickelson calls out PGA Tour after it invited one, suspended another after LIV Golf event
Phil Mickelson calls out PGA Tour after it invited one, suspended another after LIV Golf event
YouTube golf star Grant Horvat's reported invitation to play a PGA Tour event this summer and the suspension of PGA Tour pro Wesley Bryan have caught the attention of five-time major champion Phil Mickelson.
Horvat, a South Fork High grad and former Palm Beach Atlantic golfer, published on social media Wednesday that he'd received a sponsor's invitation to play the PGA Tour's Barracuda Championship.
Advertisement
The Barracuda Championship, an opposite-field event to the Open Championship, will be played July 17-20 at Old Greenwood in California.
An amateur who recently tied for 25th in a minor pro event at Jupiter's Abacoa Golf Club, Horvat took to social media to ask fans for advice on whether he should compete alongside some of the world's best golfers at the PGA Tour event.
Horvat is one of the biggest names in YouTube golf with more than a million subscribers to his channel and hundreds of thousands of followers on his Instagram and TikTok accounts.
He won the PGA Tour's Creator Classic at The Players Championship in March and hosted LIV Golf's "The Duels" broadcast on his YouTube channel at Trump National Doral Miami.
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA - MARCH 12: Grant Horvat celebrates with the trophy on the 17th hole green after winning the Creator Classic prior to THE PLAYERS Championship 2025 at TPC Sawgrass on March 12, 2025 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. (Photo by Ben Jared/PGA TOUR)
More: How Grant Horvat fared in pro tournament at Jupiter's Abacoa Golf Club
Wesley Bryan suspension catches Phil Mickelson's eye
Participation in the latter event has temporarily cost professional golfer Wesley Bryan his ability to play PGA Tour events.
Advertisement
Golf website MondayQ reported Wednesday that Bryan had been suspended indefinitely by the PGA Tour for his participation in "The Duels."
The PGA Tour has previously banned tour members, such as Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson, who defected to the Saudi-backed tour.
Bryan has five career top five finishes and nine top 10 finishes in 134 career PGA Tour events. He joined the PGA Tour in 2017 and has more than $5 million in earnings.
Bryan and his brother George also create YouTube videos on their "Bryan Bros Golf" channel, which has more than 500,000 subscribers.
Wesley Bryan of Byran Bros Golf reacts on the tenth tee during the Creator Classic prior to THE PLAYERS Championship on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass on March 12, 2025 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.
"For the last eight or nine years, the opportunities have been amazing," Bryan told Monday Q. "I'm extremely grateful to the Tour for that. I don't want this to be the end of my professional golf career."
Advertisement
Mickelson, who has been one of the PGA Tour's most vocal critics in recent years, took to X on Wednesday to call on the U.S. Department of Justice to intervene on Bryan's behalf.
"Here's a question. Normally when an entity violates independent contract law, they deny that it happened and forces the contractor/individual to prove that it did.
"In this case the PGA Tour blatantly admits they are illegally banning an independent contractor so why doesn't they DOJ step in and enforce the law? Why does the individual have to sue to enforcer the law? DOJ do your fffing job!"
Horvat later posted his own support for Bryan via X, stating, "#FreeWesley."
Advertisement
Eric J. Wallace is deputy sports editor for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at ejwallace@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Phil Mickelson calls out PGA Tour after it suspended golfer for LIV event
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
U.S. Open 2025: What to know about Oakmont's top contenders
Recently, the majors in men's golf have been particularly top-heavy. Four players — Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele and Bryson DeChambeau — have combined to win the last six contests. Five of the six wins have come when those players were ranked either first, second or third in the Official World Golf Ranking. The lone exception is DeChambeau, who cannot earn OWGR points week to week playing LIV Golf events (DeChambeau is second in Data Golf's player rankings). Advertisement From the 2008 Open Championship through the beginning of this run, there were 61 men's majors held. Just 11 of them — 18 percent — ranked in the top three in the OWGR that week. That stretch includes many years before the PGA Tour-LIV Golf split, when point distribution was more equanimous throughout the golf universe. Will one of pro golf's powerhouse names add to his major championship collection? Or will Oakmont reveal a new, ascending star? Here are the top numbers and notes to know ahead of the 125th United States Open. 1. This is the 10th U.S. Open held at Oakmont Country Club, the most frequent host in the championship's history. It's the first U.S. Open being played at this Pennsylvania cathedral since 2016, when Dustin Johnson overcame a four-shot final-round deficit to Shane Lowry to claim his first major championship victory. For the fourth time in the last six years, the U.S. Open is being contested on a course restored or renovated by renowned designer Gil Hanse. In 2023, Hanse and his team made a series of updates to the course, each inspired by archival photography going back more than a century. Expanded greens (an additional 24,000 square feet) now resemble tabletop surfaces and will generate a bevy of new hole locations. Oakmont is synonymous with brutal difficulty. In 2007, players who missed the fairway on par fours and fives hit the green in regulation just 33.5 percent of the time. Over the last two U.S. Opens held here, 10 holes have yielded a scrambling rate under 40 percent. Players have three-putted (or worse) on nearly 7 percent of greens in that span – nearly 2 1/2 times the PGA Tour average. In 2016, the field made a combined 334 double bogeys or worse for the week, 34 more than any other tournament all season. Players are greeted with a swift kick in the teeth at the opening hole, which was the hardest on the course during the 2016 U.S. Open (plus-0.45 average to par). At the second hole in the 1994 playoff, Ernie Els made a triple bogey and still won. The eighth is expected to play at more than 300 yards at least once this week, potentially breaking its own record for the longest par 3 in major championship history. Advertisement Power players have reigned at each of the last three U.S. Opens contested here: Els, Angel Cabrera (2007) and Johnson all ranked in the top five that week in distance off the tee. 2. Scheffler enters the week with the shortest odds for a U.S. Open favorite since Tiger Woods in 2009. Justifiably so: three of his last four starts have resulted in victories, each by at least four strokes. He might not have won them all, but Scheffler is unquestionably the most consistent performer at the major championships over the last several seasons. Since the beginning of 2022, Scheffler has led all players in the majors in scoring average, birdie or better rate, strokes gained ball striking and greens in regulation. Remember when Scheffler's putting was a deficiency? Not anymore. Scheffler is ranked sixth on the PGA Tour this season in putts per green in regulation and 25th in strokes gained putting per round. He was 77th on the tour in that statistic last year and 162nd the year before. The best tee-to-green player on the planet is now one of the better putters in the game, too. Good luck, everybody. Scheffler is returning to the site of his U.S. Open debut, which he made as an amateur in 2016. That week he opened with 69 but missed the cut after a second-round 78. 3. The pre-tournament course descriptions of Oakmont — a venue in the northeast, long and extremely difficult with tall, penalizing rough — sound a lot like Winged Foot Golf Club five years ago. DeChambeau captured his first U.S. Open title that week, bombing and slashing his way to a six-shot runaway victory. The severity of penalties for missing off the tee will get copious amounts of discussion, sure. But DeChambeau has largely circumvented those penalties in both of his U.S. Open wins. DeChambeau ranked 26th in fairways hit at Winged Foot and a dismal 66th last year when he won at Pinehurst. His approach play, buoyed by a uniquely steep angle of attack, put him in enough advantageous positions throughout both weeks to mitigate the missed fairways. Advertisement DeChambeau's approach play, though, has been the biggest statistical hindrance to his success in the majors so far in 2025. DeChambeau has accrued minus-3.29 strokes gained approach in the majors this season, ranking 136th of 173 players. He will need better results than that this week if he is to win a third U.S. Open title. 4. Was last week's disastrous two days in Canada a blip on the radar or a more foreboding predictor of the week ahead for McIlroy? After removing the elephant-sized boulder from his back on the 18th green of Augusta National in April, a multi-month golf hangover is understandable. But missing the cut at TPC Toronto by six shots? The heartbreak may have stolen the headlines, but McIlroy has been the most consistently good player year in and year out recently at the U.S. Open. McIlroy enters this week having finished in the top 10 in each of the last six U.S. Opens held. That's one shy of the record for consecutive top-10s, shared by Ben Hogan (1950-56), Bobby Jones (1920-26) and Stewart Gardner (1900-06). Gardner is the only one of the three not to win a U.S. Open during said streak. In 10 stroke play rounds since winning the Masters, McIlroy has lost more than half a stroke to the field per round tee-to-green. He missed the cut at Oakmont in 2016 after opening with 77. 5. Before Schauffele's two-major season of 2024, when he won at Valhalla and Royal Troon, one might have expected his major breakthrough to come at a U.S. Open. Schauffele was the first man since Bobby Jones to start his U.S. Open career with five consecutive top-10 finishes. He's finished in the top 15 in all eight of his U.S. Open starts, the third-longest such run since World War II. Only Jack Nicklaus (12 straight, 1971-82) and Sam Snead (nine straight, 1947-55) have had longer streaks. There are more than 650 players in U.S. Open history with 20 or more career rounds played. Schauffele has the best scoring average of them all (70.19). His 2.84 strokes gained total per round at this championship are the second most by any player in the modern era without a victory, behind only South African great Bobby Locke. However, the Schauffele of years past doesn't quite resemble the one competing in 2025, at least on the greens. Perennially a strong putter, Schauffele ranked 12th in strokes gained putting on the PGA Tour in 2024. He's currently an un-Schauffele-like 139th in that metric. From four to eight feet away, he's 131st on the PGA Tour this season, down 120 spots from a year ago. Advertisement Wildness off the tee is also a concern for the two-time major champ. Schauffele has missed more than 50 percent of his fairways in four of his last seven starts entering this week. Which Schauffele shows up at Oakmont — the historically great performer, or this year's work-in-progress? 6. For a moment at Quail Hollow, Jon Rahm moved back into a familiar position: the top of a major championship leaderboard on a Sunday afternoon. The 2021 U.S. Open champion ultimately finished in a tie for eighth, but his charge to tie Scheffler marked his most prominent major moment since departing the PGA Tour for LIV Golf before last year. Rahm missed last year's U.S. Open with a foot injury, but in the previous several years, he was one of the championship's best. From 2019 through 2023, Rahm ranked fifth in greens in regulation (64.7 percent), fourth in rounds in the 60s (seven), third in bogey avoidance (3.20 per round) and tied for third in scoring (70.2). Like Scheffler, Rahm also made his U.S. Open debut at Oakmont in 2016, earning low amateur honors. 7. Length off the tee has become a more significant factor when determining champions at this national open recently. Consider the last 40 years. From 1985 through 2015, the average driving distance field rank for U.S. Open winners was 28.2. Over the last nine years, that average is just 6.1. Only 39 percent of winners from '85 through '15 ranked in the top 15 in the field that week in distance. Each of the last nine has ranked at least that high. With that in mind, does Collin Morikawa have the requisite pop to win this week? He is one of the most accurate drivers in the sport, currently ranking second on the tour this season in fairways hit. But he's 157th in average driving distance, at 292.6 yards. No player has won the U.S. Open and ranked worse than 80th that year in distance since Webb Simpson in 2012. 8. Last week in Virginia, Joaquin Niemann won for the fourth time this season on LIV Golf. He tied for eighth at the PGA last month, his first career top-10 result in a major, but was never truly in contention to win, starting the final round 10 shots behind Scheffler. A year ago, entering the U.S. Open, Patrick Cantlay was in a similar position in his major championship journey as Niemann is this week. Cantlay headed to Pinehurst, a prolific touring winner with a handful of high finishes in majors, but had never truly played late on Sunday in contention to win one. Cantlay would go on that week to play in the penultimate group alongside McIlroy, finishing two shots behind DeChambeau. Advertisement Still just 26, Niemann is younger than Brooks Koepka was in 2017 (27) when he won his first major. Same for DeChambeau (27), Cameron Smith (28) and Schauffele (30). On Sunday, he will be two days younger than Rahm was when he won at Torrey Pines. There appears to be plenty of time on the clock, but Niemann's talent belies more than what he's achieved to date in the game's greatest championships. 9. Hideki Matsuyama has made the cut at the U.S. Open in eight consecutive years, tied with Schauffele for the longest active streak. Matsuyama, who missed the cut at last month's PGA, has not missed the cut in consecutive majors in nine years. Only three players have averaged more strokes gained ball striking per round at the U.S. Open over the last three years than Matsuyama has. Harris English is nine-for-nine making the cut in his U.S. Open career, doing so in each of the last six years. English, who finished tied for second at last month's PGA, has three top-eight finishes in the last five years at this championship. Tommy Fleetwood is the only man in U.S. Open history with multiple rounds of 63 or better. His improved approach play numbers this season are befitting of a contender: 12th in strokes gained, up 80 spots from a season ago. Fleetwood is one of eight players to finish in the top 20 each of the last two years at the U.S. Open. 10. More than 40 players will be making their U.S. Open debuts this week. Among them is one of the hottest players on the PGA Tour: since late April, Ben Griffin has a team win at the Zurich Classic, another win at Colonial, a top-10 finish at the PGA and a runner-up at the Memorial Tournament. No player has won in his U.S. Open debut since Francis Ouimet in 1913. U.S. Open winners skew younger compared to the other three majors in the men's game. Since 2015, the average age of U.S. Open champions is 28.1, the only one of the four with a mean age under 30. The youngest player in this year's field is 17-year-old Mason Howell, who shot a pair of 63s in final qualifying to earn his spot. Howell still has another year of high school left to complete before heading to the University of Georgia. The 125th U.S. Open begins with split tees on Thursday at 6:45 a.m. ET. (Top photo of Rory McIlroy: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Scottie Scheffler aside, Americans not stirring up much confidence for 2025 Ryder Cup
When the Americans show up in New York to get their Ryder Cup revenge in September, at least one of them will be holding a major championship trophy in 2025. Scottie Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world, made sure of that Sunday with a procession-like back nine at the PGA Championship for the third of what will likely be several major titles before it's all said and done. Advertisement There is no question that Scheffler, as understated as his personality can be, has elevated himself since the last Ryder Cup into a different category of player. He is now a colossus, chasing history more than anyone in the field. And when things ramp up at Bethpage Black this fall, there's no question that having Scheffler draped in red, white and blue will give Team USA a chance to take the Cup back on home soil. But halfway through the 2025 major championship season, is anyone else a little concerned about the state of the American team beyond the guy who has collected nine wins since the start of last year? Despite playing LIV Golf, where he can't earn Ryder Cup qualifying points, Bryson DeChambeau's performances in majors over the past year – including a tie for second at the PGA and a tie for fifth at the Masters – will get him on the team. He'll be fine. But if you look at the first two majors of the year from a Ryder Cup perspective, it's more than a little discomforting for Team USA. Advertisement Xander Schauffele, who won two majors last year, hasn't been in good form this year. Neither has Max Homa, who went 3-1-1 in his first Ryder Cup. Justin Thomas' rebound season on the PGA Tour will get him on the team, but a missed cut at the PGA and a tie for 36th at the Masters is miles from his potential in the two biggest tournaments of the year so far. Collin Morikawa? Didn't contend at Augusta or Quail Hollow. Jordan Spieth is almost a non-entity these days. Brooks Koepka has been awful in the majors since he won the PGA in 2023. Patrick Cantlay, as usual, has been a no-show in the biggest events. After that? We're in Andrew Novak/J.J. Spaun/Maverick McNealy territory. At least Harris English backed up his 12th place Masters finish with a tie for second this weekend. Given the other options, that should be enough to get him a long look from captain Keegan Bradley – who might have to pick himself to be on the team at this point. In a word: Yikes. Scottie Scheffler holds the Wanamaker Trophy after winning the PGA Championship golf tournament at Quail Hollow. That's not to suggest we should go ahead and concede the thing to Team Europe. They've got some issues, too. A lot can change in four months. And at the end of the day, playing at Bethpage – maybe the most jingoistic venue in American sports – might render everything else moot. Advertisement But goodness gracious, how is it this hard to come up with an American team that looks even remotely formidable with two majors down in a Ryder Cup year? Make no mistake: In the big picture, no country produces more quality golfers than the U.S. Though the Official World Golf Rankings have been skewed and rendered almost irrelevant because there's no way to fairly account for LIV, there are 15 Americans in the top-30 to 11 Europeans. Likewise, of the last 14 majors, 10 have been won by Americans while just three have been claimed by Europe. But when you look at who Europe is going to throw out there this fall, you're talking about Masters champion Rory McIlroy and runner-up Justin Rose. You're talking about Jon Rahm, who briefly led the PGA on the back nine before falling apart over the last three holes. Despite a poor major record, Sepp Straka has won twice on the Tour this year and Shane Lowry has six top-12 finishes already. Though Europe's Scandinavian stars have not played up to expectations this season, Ludvig Aberg at least was T-7 at the Masters and the slumping Viktor Hovland managed top-30 finishes in both majors. Can anyone be super confident going up against that bunch with a U.S. team that, for now, doesn't have a bunch of guys playing well beyond Scheffler, DeChambeau and Thomas? Advertisement At least Bradley knows he's got the best player in the world on his squad. Scheffler drove that point home this week with a dominant PGA victory. But beyond that? He's got his work cut out for him. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Scottie Scheffler looks like Team USA's only Ryder Cup hope
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
He's just a high school junior, and he just qualified for the 2025 US Open
Mason Howell may not be done with high school, but he'll be headed to the 2025 U.S. Open. The 17-year-old high school junior from Georgia punched his ticket to the 125th edition of the PGA Tour major after magnificent play in the qualifiers. Advertisement "That was one of the greatest moments of my life," Howell said after the event. Howell competed in the U.S. Open final qualifying at Piedmont Driving Club in Atlanta and breezed through the course Monday. The day is dubbed "Golf's Longest Day," as players have to play two rounds of golf in one day, although that was hardly an issue for Howell. He shot 18-under-par for the day to finish tied for first with Jackson Buchanan in the qualifying event, shooting a 63 in both rounds. Even more impressive was Howell didn't have a single bogey during the day. He birdied on the par-5 18th to cap off the day in front of several amateur and PGA Tour players older than him, including 2007 Masters champion Zach Johnson. Advertisement Only the top five finishers in the event in Atlanta moved onto the U.S. Open, and Howell now rides high momentum into playing at Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania. Who is Mason Howell? A 17-year-old from Thomasville, Georgia, Howell has become one of the top rising young golfers. He currently is a junior at Brookwood High School, scheduled to graduate in 2026. Even though his graduation is a year away, he's already committed to play at the University of Georgia in college. The Tallahassee Democrat, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported in July 2022 Howell first picked up a golf club at age three and has played in tournaments since he was six-years-old. Advertisement "Tournament golf has been a big part of my life," Howell said at the time. "I would encourage kids to start playing golf and get it into it because it's one of the greatest sports you can play." Last month, he was part of the boy's golf team that won the Georgia state championship, the program's fourth title in five years. Even more impressive, Howell won the low medalist at the state championship, winning the honor in a playoff. Howell is currently ranked eighth in the boys American Junior Golf Association rankings, but he entered Monday as the 496th ranked amateur. In his amateur career, he won the 2023 Billy Horschel Junior Championship and has 11 top-10 finishes in his young career. He also won the Future Masters Tournament in Alabama in 2023. The 2025 U.S. Open will be Howell's first major event. It takes place June 12-15. Advertisement Editor's note: This story has been updated with additional information. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: High school junior, Mason Howell, qualifies for 2025 US Open
