Phil Mickelson's absence from competitive golf to continue as defending champ withdraws from next week's PGA Championship

Reigning PGA Championship winner Phil Mickelson, who hasn't played competitively in more than three months, won't defend his title next week at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The PGA of America announced on Friday that Mickelson has withdrawn from the PGA Championship.

«We have just been informed that Phil Mickelson has withdrawn from the PGA Championship,» the statement said. «Phil is the defending champion and currently eligible to be a PGA Life Member and we would have welcomed him to participate. We wish Phil and [wife] Amy the very best and look forward to his return to golf.»

Last month, Mickelson, a six-time major champion, skipped the Masters, an event he won three times, for the first time since 1994.

Mickelson became golf's oldest major champion by winning the PGA at Kiawah Island in South Carolina at age 50 last year. He hasn't played on the PGA Tour since missing the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in late January.

Mickelson is taking time away from golf after his controversial comments about the PGA Tour and the Saudi Arabian financiers of a breakaway circuit were published by author Alan Shipnuck, whose unauthorized biography of the golfer popularly known as «Lefty» will be released next week.

Mickelson criticized the PGA Tour for its «greed» and said he was looking past the Saudi Arabian monarchy's alleged human rights violations to gain leverage with the tour.

«They're scary motherf---ers to get involved with,» Mickelson told Shipnuck, during a conversation in November. "… They killed [Washington Post reporter and U.S. resident Jamal] Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even