Back in 2022, LIV Golf was still a new, Saudi-backed league, and few players supported it as strongly as Phil Mickelson. He reportedly took a $200 million deal to leave the PGA Tour, but he did much more than that. Mickelson became LIV’s biggest recruiter, one of its biggest stars, and a team captain who helped bring other top players to the league. Four years later, LIV Golf’s bankruptcy filing tells a very different story about what Mickelson actually got from LIV.

LIV Golf filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New Jersey on September 8, 2026. The 128-page filing gave the public its clearest look yet at who owns the league. The document showed Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) owning 98.48% of LIV Golf. Performance54 Group, a PIF-controlled company, held 1.05%, while former CEO Greg Norman owned 0.23%.

Further down the filing, another 0.23% stake was listed under an unnamed “current player.” LIV Golf did not say who the player was, and Mickelson’s representative did not immediately respond to questions. However, a person familiar with the matter confirmed that the player was Mickelson.

For Mickelson, it is a strange ending to his LIV journey. He backed the league from the beginning and helped attract other players to it. Now, his ownership is finally on paper, but his 0.23% stake is tied for the smallest share listed in the filing.

Mickelson was not only one of LIV Golf’s first players. He was also the captain of HyFlyers GC when LIV held its first event in London in 2022. He helped recruit other players to the Saudi-backed league. This led to his suspension from the PGA Tour months before LIV played its first event. Later that year, Mickelson challenged the suspension in court.

His reported $200 million guarantee, along with a 25% stake in HyFlyers GC, pushed his career earnings past $1 billion. After adjusting for inflation, that put him at No. 11 among the highest-paid athletes of all time.

Mickelson also fully embraced his role in LIV. On the LIV Golf Fairway To Heaven podcast in 2024, he said he wanted his legacy to be linked to the league and its success. He hoped his work with LIV would help bring golf to a younger audience and grow the sport around the world.

But that bet has not worked out the way Mickelson once hoped. Under the proposed deal with London-based private equity firm BC Partners, the restructuring would cancel the PIF’s equity and debt. BC Partners has committed $300 million to support the deal, which the sides agreed on just hours before LIV filed for bankruptcy.

What happens to Mickelson’s small ownership stake is still unclear. The bankruptcy court will decide its future, along with the other player agreements signed before LIV filed for Chapter 11. The case is being handled by Judge Michael B. Kaplan in New Jersey.

The bankruptcy filing comes at one of the quietest stretches of Mickelson’s career. He has played only one tournament in 2026. That came in March at LIV Golf’s event in South Africa, where he finished tied for 48th. He has not competed since.

Mickelson withdrew from the Masters in April because of a family health matter. He said it would keep him away from golf for “an extended period of time.” He later pulled out of the PGA Championship and did not receive a special invitation to play in the U.S. Open.

By late June, Mickelson was also removed from the Open Championship’s list of players. He was moved to the tournament’s non-playing exempt category instead. That means Mickelson missed all four majors in the same season for the first time in his professional career. It was also his first time missing the Open since 2009, when he withdrew to stay with his wife, Amy, during her cancer treatment.

Mickelson’s minor stake is only one part of a much bigger problem for LIV Golf. The bankruptcy filing estimates that LIV has between $100 million and $500 million in assets, while its liabilities could be as high as $1 billion. The filing also shows that some of LIV’s biggest players are still owed money.

Now, at least on paper, he is left with the same 0.23% stake as LIV’s former CEO Greg Norman. Mickelson has also barely played this year, and the bankruptcy court will now decide what his small share is actually worth.