Phil Mickelson admitted he was a newbie.
YouTube, he said, hadn’t been a world he grew up in.
“I’m trying to learn as we go,” he said last August in a conference call.
Now? The polarizing six-time major winner and LIV Golf pro wants you to click and subscribe, to borrow a phrase from the medium. He’s hoping to offer you options — plural — in the booming content space. After participating in a handful of videos over the past few months, he said he’s committing this year to his own YouTube channel, revealing the plan, unsurprisingly, on a YouTube video where he played PGA Tour pro Wesley Bryan in a match.
So what can you expect? Mickelson said there’ll be three “foundational components.”
— “One is having fun with the 2 v 2 series with Grant Horvat,” Mickelson said.
In November, on X, Mickelson had teased the potential four-player series with Horvat, himself a YouTube golf star.
— “I want to do an instructional segment,” Mickelson said.
On the video, he said he’d renovated his backyard to where it’s “really a world-class practice facility, and I feel like I can showcase a lot of tips and instruction out there.”
— “And then the third thing I want to do,” Mickelson said, “is take cool people that I’ve had a chance to meet and get to know over the years, whether it’s a CEO that has turned a company around or it’s an athlete or somebody that has done something unique and then really take them to the yard, maybe give them a tip or pointer and then have coffee with them and then ask them questions about their career, what was the turning point, who helped them, what was the best advice they’ve been given, things that could help young people really start on the right path.”
He said the channel will also feature the three other members of the HyFlyers, his LIV Golf team — Cameron Tringale, Brendan Steele and Andy Ogletree. Will any of the offerings catch on? Potentially — the channel has 205,000 subscribers, and the three videos currently posted there each have been viewed more than 600,000 times. Time, of course, will tell.
Bryan, himself a YouTube golf star, offered a suggestion.
“The one thing that I personally want to see from Phil Mickelson’s channel, everybody for the last 30 years has watched you compete,” he said. “And I don’t want you to get away from robbing us of the joy of watching you compete. So I need to see you in your element. I’m really looking forward to keeping up [on] the progress of Phil Mickeson and the HyFlyers YouTube channel.”
Said Mickelson: “So Wes, it’s funny you say that. I’ve not played the way I want to the last couple years. By having four months off and being able to develop a game plan, I’ve been able to get to a point where I believe I can play at the level I played at in my 30s. I don’t know if that’s going to be the case. We’re going to see heading into this year, but I’m going to really make a push to compete at the highest level and that means fine-tuning all aspects of my game, including driving, including speed, including putting and all that, and getting my short game back to a really sharp — at the highest level.”
Said Bryan: “It could be a good year.”
Said Mickelson: “So I think that I could do something special. So let’s see.”
Editor’s note: Mickelson’s YouTube channel can be found by clicking here. Bryan’s YouTube channel can be found by clicking here.
