Tiger Woods will be back in the global golf spotlight when the PGA Championship gets under way this week but defending champion Phil Mickelson, his great rival and the player he has been tethered to throughout much of his career, will not.
Woods and Mickelson are to golf what Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal are to tennis, athletes in the twilight of their careers but still the most compelling figures in their sport and guaranteed ratings grabbers.
But Mickelson, who became golf's oldest major winner last year when he won the PGA Championship just shy of his 51st birthday, said on Friday he would not play, becoming just the third PGA champion not to defend his title after Woods in 2008 and Ben Hogan in 1949, both of whom bowed out due to injury.
Spieth missed the cut at the Masters for the first time in his career but has been golf's hottest player since winning at Hilton Head Island and finishing second at his PGA tune-up, the Byron Nelson. If the 28-year-old can triumph at the PGA Championship, where his best result was runner-up in 2015, he would join Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Woods in golf's elite club of Grand Slam winners.
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