Phil Mickelson loses bet, forced to wear joggers to the Open

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TROON, Scotland — Phil Mickelson was back out at the Open Championship on Sunday, and yet again he was wearing golf joggers at the season’s final major.

The 54-year-old golf star was spotted earlier this week sporting the golf fashion favoured by players half his age at Royal Troon.

But it wasn’t by choice … at first.

Mickelson posted a photo to his social media account showing him modelling the athleisure-wear and, by the sounds of it, the six-time major champ didn’t exactly hate it.

“As an unfashionable 54 year old, I never thought I could pull off wearing joggers,” he wrote. “Guess I was wrong. Thank you @GrantHorvatGolf we both won.”

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Mickelson was referring to a bet he lost with YouTube celebrity golfer Grant Horvat that saw him paying his debt by wearing joggers to the Open Championship. If Mickelson had won, Horvat would have been on the hook to buy a year’s worth of Mickelson’s Wellness coffee for a viewer.

Spotting the YouTuber five strokes, Mickelson lost a match that appeared on both men’s social media channel.

But a funny thing happened along the way. Mickelson discovered he really liked them.

“I actually really like them,” Mickelson said followin Saturday’s round. “Especially out here where the wind is blowing and my pants are getting caught on the socks, whatever, they’re not. I really do like them.

“Yeah, I’ll wear them again.”

And he did. On Sunday, Mickelson was back at Royal Troon plahing in the season’s last major in black golf joggers.

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The six-time major champ said he has really had fun getting into the fast-growing world of YouTube golf.

“I’m enjoying the fact that we’re able to do that now, certain guys at least, and I enjoy that element of it,” he siad. “I think that what Grant Horvat has done is create a whole different market for golf in that you can have a career in the game and not even play professionally.

“He’s very charismatic and attracts players that are a lot younger that wouldn’t maybe be exposed to the game in a whole different way than the normal medias that we have used in the game of golf, YouTube and stuff, and they’re now part of it. He’s transcending into that market. I think it’s brilliant. Bryson is doing the same thing.”

As for whether you can expect the famous lefty to become YouTube’s next big star, maybe not so fast.

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“I’ll dabble. It’s not like I’m going to do it full-time like these guys because I have other things I enjoy doing, and I’ll dabble in it, and it’s fun. It’s enjoyable.”

Mickelson’s YouTube channel began in 2022 and is called Phil Mickelson and the HyFlyers. It has 71,000 subscribers.

Horvat is one of the most popular YouTube golf personalities with 724,000 subscribers to his decade-old channel.

The video featuring the match has been viewed 1.8 million times across the two channels.

Mickelson is the 2013 Open Champion and was runner-up to Henrik Stenson in 2016 here at Royal Troon in one of the greatest duels in major championship history. Mickelson shot a 65 that day, but was bested by Stenson’s Sunday 63 as the pair ran away from the rest of the field. Mickelson finished 11 strokes clear of third place.

Mickelson left the PGA Tour for LIV Golf two years ago and has become one of the sport’s most polarizing figures.

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