Saudi-backed LIV is golf's World Series Cricket, says Mickelson

Six-time major-winner Phil Mickelson compared Saudi-funded LIV Golf to the short-lived but influential World Series Cricket of the 1970s on Thursday, insisting he had picked "the winning side". 

Mickelson, speaking ahead of LIV's first event on home soil in Saudi Arabia, said the divisive tour was following a similar template to Australian tycoon Kerry Packer's rebel cricket series. 

LIV, bankrolled by oil-rich Saudi's giant Public Investment Fund (PIF), has lured dozens of players with head-turning signing fees and $25 million purses, opening a deep rift in the sport. 

"I think you look back into the 1970s, what happened with cricket is probably the best analogy," Mickelson told reporters at Royal Greens Golf and Country Club on Saudi Arabia's Red Sea coast. 

"For a long, long time, like 30 years, pretty much all the best players played on the PGA Tour. That will never be the case again. 

"You have to pick what side you think is going to be successful, and I firmly believe that I'm on the winning side of how things are going to evolve." 

The 1977-1979 World Series divided cricket but popularised one-day and day-night matches, still staples of the sport, before the breakaway venture ended when Packer struck a deal with the Australian board. 

When asked what was to stop LIV following a similar path, Mickelson reiterated that the World Series had "totally changed" cricket. 

"I didn't grow up with cricket, but I am becoming somewhat aware of what Kerry Packer did to evolve cricket and to pay professional cricket players a reasonable fee," the American said. 

"I think they were making $200 a game back in the '70s, and they weren't getting paid, and there weren't television rights, and they were all having other jobs, and yet there