Scottie Scheffler Excuses Phil Mickelson’s Biting Jab During Masters Dinner While Tiger Woods’s Absence Upsets Golf World

The 2025 menu ditched the tortilla soup for Texas-style chili with “Papa Scheff’s” meatball and ravioli bites as starters. This year, there was another significant absentee. No, not in the menu. It was, of course, Tiger Woods. The 15-time major champion had shared about his Achilles tendon injury that ruled him out of the Masters, other tours, and even events like the Champions Dinner. But what again caught attention was Phil Mickelson’s hot takes.

Mickelson, who turned out to be a critic of Scheffler’s performance this year, posed close to him. The 54-year-old LIV golfer has earlier made a bold claim for his fellow golfer, Joaquin Neimann, the Chilean golfer who bagged two victories this season. Sharing for which, Torque GC has shared a post on X, which reads, “Joaquín Niemann has got to be a top 5 player in the world right now. Currently sits at the top of the leaderboard in Singapore for his 2 win of the season and 4th in @livgolf_league.” However, the rejection from OWGR has kept him at the 81st position on the list. There’s more to the jabs.

Then, Phil Mickelson stirred the pot on X by predicting Scottie Scheffler wouldn’t win again before the 2025 Ryder Cup, following a fiery exchange with Trevor Immelman. Notably, backing his performance, Mickelson kept Scheffler on the radar while praising Neimann’s performance. He wrote, “Top 5? Try #1.” But, as the comment later started to pick up pace, the golfer shared another comment to mellow down the situation: “Lighten up everyone, Just having a little fun.”

Now, with the close position, the golfer might have seemed to have found a common ground. Even though the golfers have found peace and the dinner went without the GOAT, the fans weren’t the happiest despite having 32 winners in a single frame. The fans started a long spree of comments about this.

Fans missed Tiger Woods at the Masters Champion Dinner

The G.O.A.T. missing from the picture left the golf community disheartened, as the comments spree had the majority asking and sharing thoughts about his absence. One of the fans wrote, “No Tiger hurts to the core…

While the reaction makes sense, this isn’t the first time for Tiger. He missed the 2021 Masters Dinner due to his recovery from a serious car accident on February 23, 2021. At the time, Woods was recovering from multiple fractures in his right leg and ankle, and he underwent several surgeries to repair the damage. His recovery from these injuries, including months of rehabilitation, prevented him from attending the Champions Dinner in April 2021.

For now, the golf world was expecting his presence at the dinner, but it did come as a surprise. Another joined writing, “I know he’s got a ruptured Achilles, but it hurts to see this pic with no Tiger in it.” The golfer who has been struggling with injuries for the past few years has been showing up to the dinners and tournaments. But now that his surgery has taken him longer to recover, it becomes unusual for the fans not to see him in the green jacket.