Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson’s rivalry was perhaps the most intense we have ever seen in golf. The two titans of the sport duelled it out over two decades, with Woods having the better of Mickelson during his never-before-seen dominance in the early 2000s, before Mickelson got his own back under the mentorship of Woods’ former coach, Butch Harmon, in the 2010s.
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson’s rivalry was perhaps the most intense we have ever seen in golf.
The two titans of the sport duelled it out over two decades, with Woods having the better of Mickelson during his never-before-seen dominance in the early 2000s, before Mickelson got his own back under the mentorship of Woods’ former coach, Butch Harmon, in the 2010s.
And as two of the fiercest competitors on the planet, Woods and Mickelson played their fair share of mental games to psyche out the other. They knew each other inside out, and figured out exactly how to push the other’s buttons in high pressure moments.
One of those instances came at a Pebble Beach Pro-Am, where Mickelson used NFL star Tony Romo to get under the skin of the 15-time major winner.
How Phil Mickelson once used Tony Romo in mind games with Tiger Woods
Mickelson once told HBO the story of how he used former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Romo to get in Woods’ head.
He said it all came about during a Pro-Am at Pebble Beach. Mickelson said, “His partner that week was Tony Romo. That night, before the final round on Saturday was a big dinner that Jim Nantz put on, and I got seated next to Tony.
“We had this great night and had a lot of fun, but I knew that it would bother Tiger that I had dinner with his partner. Tony knew it would also bother him too, so he said to his caddie, ‘Don’t mention that we had dinner, that I had dinner last night with Phil. Just don’t even bring up the dinner.’
“We’re on the first tee, I tee off, Tiger tees off, and I wait before I walk off, because I want a distance between me and Tony, so I could say it loud enough. So as we’re walking off the first tee, I yell. ‘Hey Tony! Tony! That was so much fun last night. I loved the dinner, that was the greatest!’
“And Tiger goes (turns his head) and looks right at him. And you see Tony say, ‘There were a lot of people there, and it was a really big deal, and a big function, and it was random seating.’ Anyway, so those are a couple of little funny moments that we laugh about now, but at the time were pretty intense.”
Romo and Woods are good friends off the course, but Woods, being the competitor he is, didn’t take kindly to Romo dining with the enemy!
Who Tiger Woods said was the greatest celebrity golfer, alongside Tony Romo
Woods thinks highly of Romo, who is a +3 handicap, as an amateur golfer. So much so that he once named Romo and another sporting legend as the two best celebrity golfers that he’s played with.
When asked who the best celebrity golfer was, Woods told the PGA Tour’s social media, “It’s either Smoltz or Romo. They both can play golf really well.”
John Smoltz is a Hall-of-Fame pitcher in the MLB, who won the World Series in 1995 with the Atlanta Braves. He’s good friends with Woods, but that’s not why he was given the nod. He says he’s a +4 handicap, and he qualified for the US Senior Open in 2018.
Meanwhile, Romo has teed it up on the PGA Tour in the past. He was even involved in the US Open qualifying in 2025. Both have shown that in another life, they may well have been competing against Woods.
Category: General Sports
