Phil Mickelson offers apology for Saudi comments

Last week, Phil Mickelson made controversial comments about the PGA Tour and organizers of a Saudi-backed golf league.

The reported comments, which included calling the PGA Tour a dictatorship that manipulates and divides, were made in a phone interview with Alan Shipnuck, a journalist writing his biography.

He also called the Saudis “scary,” but would look past their history of human rights abuses, to gain leverage with the PGA Tour, ESPN reported.

On Tuesday, he took to Twitter to apologize, claiming his comments were made off the record and were shared publicly without his consent.

“Although it doesn’t look this way now given my recent comments, my actions throughout this process have always been with the best interests of golf, my peers, sponsors and fans,” Mickelson said in the statement. “There is the problem of off-the-record comments being shared out of context and without my consent, but the bigger issue is that I used words that do not reflect my true feelings or intentions.”

Shipnuck responded to Mickelson on Twitter saying, “The ‘off the record’ piece of this is completely false.”

After releasing his statement, KPMG announced it was ending its corporate sponsorship with Mickelson, the Associated Press reported.