Full Story of Phil Mickelson Telling Jake Owen “Go F-ck Yourself.”

Photo: Jim Epler / Big Loud

WARNING: Language

We’d love to think that legendary golf pro Phil Mickelson hauled off and told Jake Owen “Go fuck yourself” recently for putting out garbage country music songs like “Beachin'” or for saying he’s collaborating with Lil Nas X on a hip-hop song. But the truth of the matter is the spat had to do with Phil’s primary occupation, not Jake’s.

On April 1st, Jake Owen was on Barstool Sports, and told a story about attending golfer Jordan Spieth’s wedding last November. After downing some liquid courage, Jake deciding to accost Phil Mickelson about the universally-panned Pay Per View golf match he participated in with Tiger Woods last year.

“I did give Phil Mickelson a lot of shit,” Jake Owen says. “Phil was [at the wedding] and it was the day after he played Tiger. I had a few cocktails, and I saw him across the room, and I was like, ‘I gotta go tell this guy what I think.’ So I walked over to him and I was like, ‘Hey Phil, you owe me fuckin’ $29.99 for wasting four hours of my life on the shittiest golf I’ve ever seen. You guys hyped this whole thing up about this big match. You guys couldn’t even make three birdies between the two of you.’ I’m like, ‘I want my $29.99 back, and apologize to me for some shitty golf.'”

On his toes, Phil Mickelson pulled out a wad of cash from his pocket, thumbs out a $100 bill, and tells Jake Owen, “Yeah, I won 90,000 of these yesterday. Take $100 and go fuck yourself.”

Some thought the story might be an April Fools joke since it was posted on April 1st, but hours after the interview was published, Phil Mickelson confirmed via Twitter that the conversation did in fact happen. The way Jake Owen told the story definitely gave the impression that the moment was confrontational, causing fans of the respective celebrities to feel their hero had been disrespected. Then of course the media got swarming around the story, with some choosing sides.

But late Tuesday evening (4-2), Jake Owen clarified that the whole incident was in good nature, at least from his perspective. “A lot of media outlets used the story as click bait. It was all in good fun and we both laughed about it,” Jake said. “Phil is one of the greatest players of all time and a class act.”

That’s a shame, because Phil Mickelson probably did deserve to get some shit for the Pay Per View golf event, and Jake Own probably does deserve a razzing for some of his “country” music selections. But either way, it still makes for a pretty good story.

Jake Owen just released a brand new album Greetings From Jake on March 29th, and like most Jake albums, there some good, and some bad. Saving Country Music review (possibly) forthcoming.

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