Masters dinner attendees describe Phil Mickelson’s surprising behavior

May 22, 2021; Kiawah Island, South Carolina, USA; Phil Mickelson reacts on the first green during the third round of the PGA Championship golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: David Yeazell-USA TODAY Sports

The annual Masters Champions Dinner took place at Augusta National on Tuesday night, and it sounds like there was a bit more tension in the air than in years past.

Phil Mickelson was at one point one of golf’s biggest and most outgoing stars. That came to an abrupt halt last year after he openly blasted the PGA Tour and made some controversial remarks about working with Saudi Arabia. Mickelson stepped away for a while and then signed a massive deal with LIV Golf.

Several of golf’s biggest stars have since done the same. That has created a rivalry among players from the PGA Tour and LIV, but 1979 Masters champion Fuzzy Zoeller told Golfweek’s Doug Stutsman that no one mentioned a word about LIV during the Champions Dinner. And apparently Mickelson did not speak, period.

“We’re just 33 past champions in a room, all trying to get along,” Zoeller said. “Nobody said a word about it. Phil sat near the end of the table and kept to himself. He didn’t speak at all.”

Tommy Aaron, who won the Masters in 1973, was also surprised by how silent Mickelson was.

“I wished him good luck, but I couldn’t believe how quiet he was,” Aaron told Golfweek. “Phil took a very low profile. He didn’t say a word.”

Mickelson skipped the Masters last year after playing in the tournament every year since 1994 prior to that. Either he did not want to speak to his peers at Tuesday night’s dinner, or he had reason to believe they did not want to speak with him.

Mickelson has cracked some jokes about the LIV vs. PGA Tour narrative, but he apparently had no funny quips he wanted to test out at Augusta on Tuesday.