Pat Perez Admits He 'Cannot Forgive' Phil Mickelson

Pat Perez has revealed the extent of his disdain for Phil Mickelson, admitting he "cannot forgive" the six-time Major winner's past actions.

Talking to Claude Harmon on the Son of a Butch podcast, the three-time PGA Tour winner described his relationship with Mickelson, saying: "When it comes to Phil, I have a different hate for Phil than most people. People won't know the story, I'm not going to go into the story again, but Phil crossed the line with me that is just uncrossable and unforgivable.

"He knows that he screwed up. He apologised for the accident, but I cannot forgive him for it because I've known Phil for a long, long time. I've known the guy forever.

"And the fact that when he made this action, not only was it - he had intentions of doing it. He was already - he knew it was going to happen before it happened and when he did it - I was hurt for one. I was like 'how can this guy do this?'

"I didn't really go into it on Colt's thing (Colt Knost), but I told Colt and said, 'You've cut out all the reasons of why I don't like Phil' - the other side of the coin is that everyone thought that Phil was greedy. No, he wasn't greedy."

Perez was a part of the 4 Aces GC that won the LIV Golf finale and with it, a $16m prize that was split amongst the team. His individual efforts haven’t exactly been much to write home about - failing to register a single top-ten - but he has still has earned over $8m from the breakaway series so far.

Without divulging exactly why he feels hatred for the six-time major winner, Perez referred back to an interview with Knost back in March, where he said the 52-year-old tried to get players to join the breakaway series “behind everyone’s back” so he could secure a “big golden paycheque.”

The 46-year-old was named as one of the 11 players on an anti-trust lawsuit against the PGA Tour, alongside Mickelson, however both eventually pulled out of the case which is set to begin next year, and he has "no ill feelings towards the Tour."

Perez doesn’t believe the PGA Tour is perfect, admitting Mickelson had a point when he claimed the Saudi leverage was the only way to get Jay Monahan to do the right thing. 

He added: "He (Phil) is 100% correct in the fact that the way the Tour is the way they are. They are for themselves; they are not for the players. They are not for growing anybody else except their own pockets."