The 2024 tax documents were filed this week, and they don’t look pretty. $760 million in revenue. Expenses worth $1.2 billion. Assets worth $3.8 billion. Sorted, right? Not so much per Phil Mickelson. He has found a discrepancy in asset valuation.

“Assets totaling $3.8 billion but sold to SSG based on a $12.5 billion valuation? 🤔 I wonder where the other $8.7 billion is that was factored in. Just kidding. That was rhetorical; I already know,” wrote Mickelson on X, quoting the mismatch.

Actually, this figure was never officially confirmed as the SSG’s valuation of the enterprise. It was just a report that Bloomberg released earlier this year, but with Mickelson’s specificity, it seems he knows something the golf world doesn’t. In fact, his words don’t quite translate positively.

The LIV golfer’s remarks also take a subtle dig at former Tour commissioner Jay Monahan‘s compensation. He earned $19,227,851 last year. Allocated over total cash and benefits compensation at $15.5 million, $3.8 million was in deferred dollars. While the total is lower than 2023’s $23 million total compensation, the cash and benefits compensation is $1.3 million higher than in 2023.

Please note that due to the structural changes in the tour and formation of PGA Tour Enterprises in January of 2024, the tax filing doesn’t give a full picture of the financials. Many areas of the return are not directly comparable to 2023, including revenue. In 2024, the PGA Tour saw a $1.82 billion dip in revenue from 2023 (how did Monahan’s salary increase then, though?). Expenses dropped from 0.71 billion in 2024.

While everything remains speculation at this point, it undeniably points to the PGA Tour’s ‘obnoxious’ financial truth. Phil Mickelson has strong opinions on that.

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Phil Mickelson reveals the PGA Tour’s dubious truth

This is far from the first time the LIV golfer has raised his voice against the PGA Tour’s lack of transparency and financial exploitation. One of the first times he expressed his concern was when he was at a career crossroads, deciding whether to continue on the Tour or join the Saudi league.

He first revealed that Tour controlled and manipulated media rights to earn unethical profits. The golfers do not own their digital content. Moreover, the enterprise refuses to fairly share the media rights revenue. “It’s not public knowledge, all that goes on. But the players don’t have access to their own media,” said Lefty.

“If the tour wanted to end any threat [from Saudi or anywhere else], they could just hand back the media rights to the players,” he continued. “But they would rather throw $25 million here and $40 million there than give back the roughly $20 billion in digital assets they control.”

Now, in the light of this exploitation, the billions of dollars in extra evaluation don’t seem all that impossible, right? Whether this is what Mickelson hinted at with his note or if the Tour has other dubious sources of revenue and hidden assets is debatable. But what’s not debatable is the Tour’s shady financial reality.