Phil Mickelson gets round of applause at LIV Golf Miami presser... but why?

LIV Golf's Phil Mickelson received a round of applause after making a speech about the progress of the Saudi-backed series in its first season.  

According to No Laying Up, the six-time major champion took in some "audible clapping" after describing how far the LIV Golf Tour has come since hosting its first event near London in June.

The popular podcast also reported that there were between 50 and 75 LIV Golf staff members present at the media session which saw the quarter-final matches of the Team Championship in Miami decided.

Mickelson was one of the team captains at the table and he will face Cameron Smith in a singles match on Friday, hoping Hy Flyers GC can progress to the semi-finals on Saturday.

"If I'm just looking at LIV Golf and where we are today to where we were six, seven months ago and people are saying this is dead in the water, and we're past that," Mickelson said.

A round of applause in the media center as Phil expresses how far LIV has come in the last 6-7 months.

— No Laying Up (@NoLayingUp) October 26, 2022

"Here we are today, a force in the game that's not going away, that has players of this calibre that are moving professional golf throughout the world and the excitement level in the countries around the world of having some of the best players in the game of golf coming to their country and competing.

"It's pretty remarkable how far LIV Golf has come in the last six, seven months. I don't think anybody can disagree with that."

Lefty, who allegedly almost ruined the launch of LIV Golf with his comments about Saudi Arabia earlier this year, has played in every event on the start-up tour and we can expect to see him play in all 14 events in the 2023 schedule.

During the first press conference of the event at Trump National Doral, Mickelson and Brooks Koepka exchanged some brutal comments to promote the final fixture of the 2022 season.

"If you want a rematch of the '21 PGA you could pick our team," Mickelson said.

"You've never been No.1 in the world," Koepka came back with.

"That's a beautiful green shirt, do you have a green jacket?" Mickelson fired back.

In the other session which featured the captains of the teams seeded 5 to 12, Ian Poulter and Kevin Na also took part in some sledging across the table.

Na said that his Iron Heads teammate Sihwan Kim will have to carry a cane for Lee Westwood referring to the Englishman's age. Poulter took some issue with this.

"Well, listen, you're talking about Kevin Na walking in putts right? So we'll see who gets the first one to go. It could take him a while to walk a few in, it normally does," Poulter said, referring to previous accusations of Na's slow play.

The banter didn't receive quite the applause that Mickelson did, but it certainly created a little bit of tension ahead of the $50 million finale.