Is Phil Mickelson playing at the 2023 BMW Championship?
The BMW Championship hosts, starting Thursday, the 50 players with the most stable performances of the current PGA Tour season. However, not all the great stars of world golf are gathered at Olympia Fields Country Club. Some are missing; that is the case with Phil Mickelson.
The reason is that the only method of qualifying for the BMW Championship is the FedEx Cup ranking. With the LIV Golf Circuit tournaments not receiving points for that ranking, players who perform there, like Mickelson, are virtually excluded from the postseason playoffs.
But what about the majors? Phil Mickelson's performance in the four majors of the current season should have given him 275.78 points for the FedEx Cup ranking, which would have been quite far from placing him in the Top 70.
But, as if that were not enough, the points for the FedEx Cup ranking are only valid for those players who are members of the PGA Tour or who become members during the season.
According to the official PGA Tour website, points for Non-Members (such as LIV Golf Circuit players) and Special Temporary Members are recorded in a separate listing but become valid only if the players earn their PGA Tour membership.
This may not be the case for Phil Mickelson, but other LIV Golf players could have finished in the Top 70. The clear example is Brooks Koepka, whose performance in the majors would have earned him 930.42 points for the FedEx Cup Ranking, had they been valid.
With that amount of points, Koepka would be 51st in the FedEx Cup ranking going into the BMW Championship (disregarding what he could have earned in the FedEx St. Jude Championship).
Phil Mickelson at the BMW Championship
Lefty was one of the customary entertainers at the second postseason playoffs tournament practically from its founding until he left for LIV Golf.
Between 2008 and 2019, Phil Mickelson participated in 12 consecutive editions. He missed 2020 but returned in 2021, his last appearance so far.
His best performance in this tournament is to have finished T2 in 2012, losing by two strokes to Rory McIlroy. He achieved another Top 10 (T8 in 2010) and three Top 25s. His worst result was a T66 finish in 2021.
But Mickelson's history with the tournament goes back even further. Let's remember that the BMW Championship is the successor of the Western Open, a tournament in which Lefty participated 10 times between 1992 and 2006.
His best results at that stage were finishing T26 in 1996 and T30 in 2003. His worst result was being cut twice.