It's sad Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson won't be playing in Memphis anymore | Giannotto

I’m supposed to be outraged at Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson.

I’m supposed to be mad that they became the two biggest names to jump from the PGA Tour to the Saudi Arabian-backed LIV Golf series beginning this week in London.

I’m supposed to remind you this is a classic example of sportswashing because they reportedly took hundreds of millions of dollars from the same Saudi regime that has a horrible human rights record and brutally assassinated dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi four years ago.

I’m also supposed to overlook that the American government has “a long-standing bilateral relationship” with Saudi Arabia, according to the State Department, or that the United States imports hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day from that same regime.

MORE: Meet the 'shine doctor,' the only man allowed to clean Phil Mickelson's shoes at WGC-Memphis

MORE: Rachel Heck's meteoric rise in women's college golf has yet to find a limit

But sitting here in Memphis, watching golf fans excoriate Mickelson and Johnson for eschewing the status quo and tradition for a huge payday, watching national media pillory them over a decades-old diplomatic quandary that has befuddled Democrats and Republicans alike, I’m just sad.

I’m sad that Mickelson and Johnson aren’t going to play in Memphis this year. I’m sad that, as of now, there’s a chance they may never play in Memphis again.

These are two golfers who showed up year after year when the PGA Tour came to town. They showed up before it was cool to come to Memphis, before FedEx convinced the PGA Tour to transform this tournament into a World Golf Championships event and, beginning this year, a FedEx Cup playoff event.

Mickelson signed every autograph, played to the biggest galleries and sung the praises of the city any time someone stuck a microphone in front of his face. Johnson won this event two times, and there’s even a commemorative plaque in the ground on the spot where he holed out at No. 18 to win in 2018. He personally donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital multiple times because he was so moved by its mission.

They were loyal to Memphis in a way no other big names on the Tour were over the past decade. Since 2012, there hasn’t been a PGA Tour event held in Memphis without one or both in the field. They helped this tournament when the tournament needed it the most, and now they can’t come back.

MORE: Overton Park golf course renovation puts Junior Open back in the swing

MORE: Topgolf is coming to Memphis

The PGA Tour won’t allow it. The LIV Golf is too much of a threat.

Johnson announced Tuesday from London he had resigned from the Tour. Mickelson, along with the rest of the 48-golfer field in this week’s LIV Golf event, could be banned from playing PGA Tour events moving forward.

I understand why the PGA Tour might respond this way. I wish Mickelson and Johnson would choose differently.

But I also understand why they’re doing it. And no, I don’t buy for one second the altruistic nonsense they’re trying to sell us that they’re doing this for the good of the game of golf.

LIV Golf is offering them more guaranteed money – and I mean a lot more – to play fewer golf tournaments. Who among us can say with certainty they would turn down more money to work less?

“I chose what’s best for me and my family,” Johnson said at a press conference Tuesday.

It was admittedly a clunky answer and could have been handled better. Just as Mickelson could have and should have handled his dalliance with this new endeavor better when he was publicly shamed into hiding the past few months.

But Graeme McDowell, seated next to Johnson on the podium in London, offered a response that spotlighted what this is really exposing about golf, and about the PGA Tour. Hint: It has nothing to do with politics.

“We’ve played all around the world chasing paychecks,” McDowell said. “Outside of the majors and the Ryder Cup, it’s a business.”

Memphis is lucky that FedEx, particularly recently, shielded its PGA Tour event from the new reality presented by LIV Golf, and the element of free agency that could be introduced into the golf world should this new tour succeed.

The biggest names in golf will again descend on TPC Southwind in August because the newly renamed FedEx St. Jude Championship is a FedEx Cup playoff event and the winner of the FedEx Cup playoff made $15 million last year.

But there are plenty of other events on the PGA Tour schedule that are a lot like what the old FedEx St. Jude Classic used to be. They are important to towns in a way they aren’t important to the greatest golfers in the world.

It’s sad to think some of those tournaments might not be lucky enough to have stars like Mickelson and Johnson who are willing to show up year after year.

You can reach Commercial Appeal columnist Mark Giannotto via email at mgiannotto@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter: @mgiannotto

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: LIV Golf: It's sad Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson won't play in Memphis