Phil Mickelson might remember the 2019 Open Championship for what it could’ve been, but famous golf personality and Alyn Golf CEO Tisha Alyn remembers it for what it was. A surreal moment. Mickelson started the year with a T2 at the Desert Classic and then won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. But his form hit a skid midway through the season, and by the time The Open came in July, Mickelson was desperate to recover his lost mojo.

Tisha Alyn was present at Royal Portrush and was on the sidelines on Friday following the six-time major winner. Mickelson shot a 76 in the first round and was all but certain to miss the cut after another tough day. He would later go on to call his performance “terrible.” Alyn, at that point, had exchanged a few DMs, in which Mickelson had told Alyn how much he liked her work. However, she wasn’t sure if she was actually speaking to the 45-time PGA Tour winner or Mickelson’s social media team. She soon found out.

“I was waiting for him on the tee box, and I thought if it was him, he’d say hi to me because I’m literally going to be in his eyeline,” she said in a recent appearance at the Nuclr Golf Podcast. “If it’s not him, whatever, I’m messaging his team. Close enough, good enough. Sure enough, I happened to be recording, and he saw me. He was supposed to walk to the tee. Instead, he beelined over to me. He gave me a hug, and he said, ‘It’s nice meeting you in real life. It’s nice meeting you in person. You’re crushing the internet.'”

Speaking further on the Phil Mickelson encounter, Alyn said the other spectators were surprised when Lefty came to speak with her.

Recounting the moment, Alyn said, “You know, this is before the LIV situation. All PGA Tour players are superheroes. Phil’s a superhero. I remember turning around and seeing all the crowds, and they were just like, ‘Who is this girl?’ And I am like, ‘I know there are a lot of assumptions right now, but really, we are just fans of one another.’ And it was such a cool moment,” she added.

Alyn, a top collegiate golfer, turned pro in 2015 and later shifted her focus to social media after Paige Spiranac convinced her of the great potential it holds. Later, she went on to establish her own golf apparel brand, Alyn Golf. Over the years, she has met multiple pro golfers, and Alyn said there were numerous stories like the Phil Mickelson encounter that felt “surreal.”

Mickelson went on to miss the cut that year after shooting 72 on Friday at the 2019 Open Championship. Two years later, Mickelson won the 2021 PGA Championship at 50, becoming the oldest major winner ever. Then he jumped to LIV.

The LIV-PGA Tour fight has followed him since. He was the biggest and arguably the most important name to jump ship. Since then, Mickelson has promoted the Saudi-backed league and has burned a few bridges as was evident from Nick Faldo’s comments.

Nick Faldo rips into the favorite catchphrase from Phil Mickelson

Mickelson has repeatedly highlighted LIV Golf’s efforts to promote junior golf and grow the game. He has also spoken glowingly about the league’s effort to popularize the game in pockets where the PGA Tour would never reach. But it has drawn a sharp response from Nick Faldo.

The six-time major champion took aim at one of LIV Golf’s favorite talking points, questioning whether the circuit is genuinely growing the game: “I get very frustrated when they throw out lines like growing the game of golf,” Faldo said on the Sky Sports Golf Podcast. 

He then pointed to his own decades-long work with junior golfers, taking a swipe at Mickelson’s one-off appearance.

“I thought, sunshine, I was here 20 years ago with a golfer called Rory McIlroy and a girl called Yani Tseng. I’ve got 240 nippers here in the next two days, because we had 4,000 at my Faldo Futures. My series is 30 years old. That is growing the game of golf, not just bowling up in Hong Kong once.”

With LIV Golf facing funding issues since Saudi Arabia’s PIF withdrew its funding, the futures of its players have been called into question. Faldo also questioned LIV’s future, claiming more players want out than in. He added that its guaranteed money and no-cut format mean “it’s not championship golf,” with little “fear of failure.”

LIV Golf, meanwhile, has filed for bankruptcy protection. It owes around $64 million to its creditors, which also include some of the league’s biggest names. Phil Mickelson has largely been absent from public life, citing a family health matter.