19th Hole
Cam Smith accuses Phil Mickelson of ‘gamesmanship’ during LIV showdown

Phil Mickelson has had ‘a week’ at the final event of the LIV Golf series.
Just before the team event finale started at the LIV Miami, the three-time Masters champion had a terrific war of words with Brooks Koepka, captain of the Smash GC team.
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The captains were offered their choice of opponent and, before Koepka could answer, Mickelson suggested they have a repeat of their final round clash at the 2021 PGA Championship, an event the then 51-year-old won to be the oldest of all major winners.
The 32-year-old, himself winner of four majors, came back by suggesting, “If you wanna play we can play but, I don’t know if you know this cause you’ve never been No.1 in the world, but if you finish (No.1) at the end of the year they give you a little trophy so I got two of those, I’ll bring one to show you.”
Amidst the gallery’s laughter, Lefty wasn’t to be left without the last word.
“That’s a beautiful green shirt,” he commented to his rival. “Do you have a green jacket?”
He didn’t quite have the same answers a few days later, when 2022 Open Champion Cam Smith knocked out Mickelson’s team, the Hy Flyers, care of a seven-foot final hole birdie.
However, despite seeing Punch GC team progress, the former world number two accused his opponent of a touch of gamesmanship.
“We both struck the ball good. I probably didn’t hole as many putts as I’d like, but I was able to get the job done there on the last hole,” said the Australian star.
“Yeah, it was a good match,” he continued. “I think Phil maybe had some gamesmanship in there a little bit. He seemed to take forever today. I think we were three or four holes behind, so that was a bit painful. But other than that, it was good.”
Two days later, both Koepka’s ‘Smash’ and Smith’s ‘Punch’ made the last four, to compete on the lucrative final day against Louis Oosthuizen’s Stingers and the team that has dominated the LIV series – the Aces – comprising captain Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Talor Gooch and Pat Perez.
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19th Hole
Report: PGA Tour winner latest player to sign with LIV Golf

Another PGA Tour winner is headed to LIV Golf.
According to The Telegraph, Colombian Sebastian Munoz has agreed to a deal with the rival circuit. Munoz adds to the growing list of Spanish speaking players on LIV including Joaquin Niemann, Sergio Garcia, Abraham Ancer, Mito Pereira and Eugenio Chacarra.
Munoz has previously won the Sanderson Farms Championship and has six additional top-5 finishes on the PGA Tour.
At the time of his signing, the 30-year-old was ranked 90th in the Official World Golf Rankings. Munoz is set to make his LIV Golf debut at Mayakoba on February 24-26.
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19th Hole
Bubba Watson says that he will beg Jay Monahan to play in this PGA Tour event

Bubba Watson, who joined LIV Golf last year, is still hoping he can play in a PGA Tour event.
The two-time major champion plans to “beg” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan to allow Watson and his son to play in next year’s PNC Championship, which is an event that consists of a father/son or father/daughter tandem with one professional on each team.
“My son, like I said, he doesn’t play golf, but now his whole goal was – I’ll put this out there, his whole goal was to play in the PNC, which is the parent-junior, and now I’m not allowed to play in it. As soon as I see Jay Monahan – if Jay Monahan is watching this, I’ll see you at Augusta and I’ll try to beg you to let us play the PNC again.”
Watson and the other LIV golfers who were previously exempt or top-50 in the world will still get a chance to compete in this year Masters Tournament, to which Bubba is grateful.
“I was very thankful that we get to go back to the Masters. Then LIV announced their schedule, so I won’t be able to go to the women’s tournament or the Drive, Chip & Putt with the kids because we’ll be in Orlando. But it’s one year, I’m going to definitely be in the ears of people at LIV and try to see if I can get back there because I want to support what the Masters means to the game of golf, what the membership of Augusta means to the game of golf, and I would love to be there for the Women’s Amateur and the kids on Sunday.”
The 44-year-old (along with all LIV players) is currently suspended from the PGA Tour but will make his first start since the PGA Championship in May of 2022 at this week’s Saudi International at Royal Greens Golf and Country Club after missing time with a torn meniscus.
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19th Hole
Patrick Reed issues statement following rules controversy in Dubai

On his way to finishing runner-up at last week’s Dubai Desert Classic, Patrick Reed found himself caught up in two incidents of note.
The first, widely nicknamed ‘Tee Gate’ saw a pre-event spat between Reed and the world number one and tournament favourite Rory McIlroy, resulting in the former Masters winner lobbing a LIV-branded tee in his opponent’s direction. Little were they aware that it would take a birdie at each of the final two holes for McIlroy to overcome the most talked-about player in golf.
The second newsworthy episode involved Reed losing his ball up a tree on the 17th fairway, an escapade that resulted in a social media frenzy asking whether the ball found was, in fact, the correct ball and how several marshals identified it.
The DP World Tour’s statement at the time cleared Reed, stating that, “Using binoculars [the DP World Tour Chief Referee] joined the player in the area and asked him to identify his distinctive ball markings,” and “was satisfied that a ball with those markings was lodged in the tree.”
Video footage and players’ comments subsequently pointed to the ball flying into a different tee, but in Reed’s defence, he was likely to have been advised to the exact tree to look into, rather than guess himself.
He signed for a bogey five on the hole, a score that could have been one shot worse if having to reload on the tee box.
Reed himself sees the event much like most did the tee-peg incident – as something and nothing – and posted a statement to that effect on Twitter today:
This is my statement regarding Dubai Desert Classic! Maybe it’s time we get back to playing some golf! Best wishes. pic.twitter.com/sTUHOHzkPF
— Patrick Reed (@PReedGolf) January 31, 2023
With that all over, this week Reed returns to the Asian Tour for the Saudi International, where he meets up with much of his LIV counterparts in an event dominated by two-time champion Dustin Johnson.
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geohogan
Nov 4, 2022 at 4:18 pm
3 holes behind…5 holes, so what
Liv and let Liv, eh Phil
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Jed
Oct 31, 2022 at 4:35 pm
3 or 4 holes behind???!!!!! Wtf
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