Phil Mickelson Returns To Professional Golf Joining The Saudi Backed LIV Tour

Phil Mickelson announced on Twitter that he is returning to golf and has signed on with the Greg Norman-led, Saudi-financed LIV Tour.

The LIV tour's inaugural event starts Thursday in London at the Centurion Club.

Six-time major winner Mickelson adds a huge name to the growing list of participants in the LIV event. There are 6 other major winners in the field this week; Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Martin Kaymer, and Graham McDowell.

Also in the field are Americans Kevin Na and Taylor Gooch and Europeans Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter.

Mickelson joins the tour in the midst of losing a number of sponsors because of his latest discretions. Out are Amstel Light, KMPG and Workday. Callaway has also paused its equipment deal that Phil had signed through the end of his career.

The event will follow a new and different format, with the 48 golfers broken into 12 four-man teams. There will be both individual and team competitions simultaneously. The team competition will take two of the best scores of the four golfers for the first two rounds, and then three scores of the four golfers in the third and final round.

Prize money for the event pays every competitor. The individual event pays $20 million in prize money, with the winner getting $4 million and last place getting $120,000. The team competition pays the top 3 teams with $3 million going to first place.

LIV will be live streaming the event on their site, YouTube and Facebook.

Here's what OutKick founder Clay Travis had to say about the topic:

"It’s crazy that Phil Mickelson got more criticized for discussing joining this Saudi Tour than Joe Biden is getting criticized for traveling to Saudi Arabia to try and get them to pump more gas."