Phil Mickelson's strangely intermittent 2026 season continues. The 55-year-old will skip this week's LIV Golf Virginia tournament at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, the league's home venue and one of the events many had assumed Mickelson would treat as a marquee start before the year's second major. Instead, his name will not appear on the tee sheet, with HyFlyers GC confirming that Scott Vincent will captain the team in his absence.
The reason is a continuation of a story Mickelson has handled privately for several months. According to the LIV Golf field announcement reported by Field Level Media, Mickelson is sitting out due to an unspecified family health matter, the same circumstance that has limited him to a single LIV start in 2026 — a tied-48th finish at LIV Golf South Africa in March. He also missed last month's Masters at Augusta National, a tournament where he is a three-time champion and a fixture of the patrons' affection.
What makes the timing of his absence this week notable is what comes immediately afterwards. Mickelson is on the field list for the 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club from May 14-17, the second major of the year, and a tournament he has won twice — at Baltusrol in 2005 and at Kiawah Island in 2021, where he became the oldest major champion in golf history at the age of 50. Those two victories, combined with his lifetime PGA Tour membership, give him a permanent invitation to the PGA Championship, regardless of his playing form or schedule activity.
The mechanics of his lifetime exemption sit somewhat awkwardly with his recent positioning relative to the PGA Tour. Mickelson has not played a regular tour event in years and was one of the most outspoken architects of the LIV Golf launch in 2022, with public broadsides at the PGA Tour's leadership and structure that have not been forgotten by his peers. Speaking on the Sky Sports Golf Podcast this week, Billy Horschel went so far as to argue Mickelson is the one major LIV name unlikely to find a way back to PGA Tour competition even when the league's PIF funding ends after this season.
"I don't see a road for Phil Mickelson back to the PGA Tour, even though he's a lifetime member of the PGA Tour and he's done a lot," Horschel said.
However, the PGA Championship is administered by the PGA of America, not the PGA Tour, which means Mickelson's relationship with one organisation does not impair his standing with the other. The 154-player Aronimink field announced on May 5 includes 15 PGA champions and 29 major champions, and Mickelson's presence is a guaranteed storyline regardless of his form. Whether he arrives sharp enough to contend in earnest after a season of effectively no competitive starts is a separate question.
His path through Aronimink is harder to read than it has been at any point of his career. The Donald Ross-designed course, restored in recent years by architect Gil Hanse, sets up as a precision test rather than a power one — a reasonable fit for the version of Mickelson that won at Kiawah, less obviously suited to a player who has not posted a competitive round in months. The on-record indications from his team are that the family situation rather than form is the central concern. The implication for the PGA Championship is that Mickelson's appearance at Aronimink, whenever exactly it begins, will be his first meaningful tournament golf since March, with all the rust that entails.
For now, the LIV Golf Virginia event will roll on without one of its most recognisable founding faces, and Aronimink will await its three-time runner-up and two-time winner with no firm certainty about how, or in what condition, he will arrive.
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*Originally published on [Golf News Global](https://golfnews.global/article/phil-mickelson-skips-liv-virginia-pga-championship-aronimink-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
