Phil Mickelson has come out firing on this Players Championship Sunday.
Phil Mickelson dishes scorching hot Scottie Scheffler take after Joaquin Niemann’s LIV Golf win
Phil Mickelson took to social media to make some bold claims about the number one player in the world.
Photo by Zhizhao Wu/Getty Images
Jack Milko has been playing golf since he was five years old. He has yet to record a hole-in-one, but he did secure an M.A. in Sports Journalism from St. Bonaventure University.
Immediately after Joaquin Niemann won his second LIV Golf title of the season in Singapore, Mickelson referred to the Chilean as the best player in the world on X.
His tweet was in response to a post from Torque GC, which claimed that Niemann is a top-5 player in the world right now.
Niemann has had a solid start to his LIV Golf season, as his 5-shot victory in Singapore marked his second LIV Golf title of 2025. He also won in Adelaide, doing so by three over Mexicans Abraham Ancer and Carlos Ortiz.
DataGolf currently lists Niemann as the 14th ranked player in the world.
But the platform has Scottie Scheffler sitting atop their rankings, as does the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR). Any golf fan and pundit will tell you that Scheffler is the best player on the planet, especially considering what he did last year on the PGA Tour. Winning two of the last three Masters has also cemented him atop the sport.
Despite that, Mickelson fired off another hot take in response to a tweet posted by CBS Analyst Trevor Immelman during a lengthy weather delay at The Players Championship.
Mickelson then called out Scheffler:
“Here’s a hot take,” Mickelson said.
“Does Scotte win in 2025 before the Ryder Cup? I don’t think so.”
Perhaps Mickelson’s prediction holds but all signs point to Scheffler emerging victorious before then. He arrives at every event he plays as a massive favorite and the man to beat. He is hitting the ball as well as anyone from tee-to-green, too, but he has had some struggles on the greens — similar to his first few weeks of his historic 2024 season.
But when you break it down, Niemann does not have the resume to dethrone Scheffler as the World No. 1. At least not yet.
Will Knights of The Fried Egg matched up both players’ resumes from the 16 majors that the two have played in together:
On top of that, despite his talent, Niemann has yet to post a top-10 finish in a major. His best result came at Augusta National in 2023, when he tied for 16th. But until he wins the big one — or at the very least contends — labeling Niemann as the best player in the world is a bit of a stretch.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.
