JEDDAH: American superstar Phil Mickelson has urged his Hy Flyers teammates to play in the manner “they are capable of” at this weekend’s LIV Golf Invitational Jeddah Presented by Roshn, in a bid to build momentum for the season-ending championship in Miami later this month.
The Hy Flyers GC team of six-time Major winner Mickelson, Bernd Wiesberger, Matthew Wolff and Cameron Tringale currently sit ninth in the 12-team standings and have a chance to climb the rankings at the series’ Middle East debut at Royal Greens Golf & Country Club this weekend.
That could be all-important going into the Team Championship at Trump National Doral Golf Club in Miami from Oct. 28 to 30, a seeded three-day, knockout tournament with a $50 million prize purse that will feature both match play and stroke play formats.
The top four teams in the standings will receive a bye on day one in Miami, with teams seeded five to 12 competing in head-to-head match play competitions for the chance to make it to the weekend.
Mickelson said: “We’re pretty far down the list and we’re not in a position to get a bye on Friday. So, we’re trying to use this week to get our game sharp. We have a lot of good players. We haven’t put it together. We need to build a little bit of momentum as we head into the final event of the year.
“We’ll have some time then to kind of regroup, get ready for the upcoming year. And there’s a lot of things internally that are happening within as we transition from LIV (Invitational) to the League … But we have a chance here to gain a little bit of momentum, play well on a golf course that’s fun to play, very similar to when we’re going to be playing in Doral, to try to build some momentum.
“Let’s go out and play well, win our points and move on to the weekend. I think that we have enough good players to do it, we just have to start playing the golf that we’re capable of playing.”
“Lefty” is one of 12 major winners in the field with other notable names including current Open Champion Cameron Smith, four-time Major champion Brooks Koepka and past Saudi International winners Dustin Johnson, Harold Varner III and Graeme McDowell.
