Phil Unpolished

After Phil Mickelson took down Tiger Woods (and Aaron Oberholser and Brett Wetterich) at the TPC Boston in the Deutsche Bank Championship, NBC Sports' Jimmy Roberts came in to do the post tournament interview. He went right to the heart of the matter and asked Mickelson about speculation concerning his playing schedule and whether Mickelson would appear next week in Chicago for the BMW Championship Formerly Known as the Western Open.

In rare form, Mickelson was about as blunt as he could be with Roberts, saying that he was not sure whether or not he would play. Then, without prompt, he said his choice was between supporting golf/the PGA Tour/the FedEx Cup by playing next week and being paired with Tiger again, or making a stance against PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem. Mickelson accused Finchem of failing to meet several of Mickelson's demands for changes on Tour (without going into detail) that seemingly was a part of the bargain of Phil participating in the FedEx Cup series.

Basically, Phil was wondering out loud if he should use the FedEx Cup to cash in on a deal he sees as failed with Finchem, or support golf, which surely got an enormous burst from the Mickelson-Woods back nine showdown. I'm pretty sure it'll be apparent in the ratings and it definitely was in media coverage and among the Boston fans.

It really seems like Phil Mickelson may be one of the first A-list players to come out and trash the Commish publicly in an attempt to explain why some of the game's best are not fully participating in this new concept. Tiger gave a BS excuse to skip the Barclays. So did Ernie Els in skipping this week. Phil isn't BSing anyone with why he may very well may not stay in Chicago this week.

Several lesser known players have already come out and said to members of the media that Finchem did little or no consultation with the players as a body before unveiling the FEC. Some have gone on to explain that the players are indifferent or negative about the idea because their input was never solicited, or if it was, it was discarded.

If you'll remember right, I did a piece a couple of years ago detailing Tim Finchem's pay increase and extension that made himself the highest paid sports commissioner. I was skeptical then whether or not he deserved that extension and pay hike and detailed why in that piece. Now I'm pretty sure that he didn't deserve that money. Finchem is apparently doing a terrible job of representing the interests of the players (PLAYERS?) and now is paying the price by being embarrassed in public.

Here's the real question - was Phil Mickelson calling for Finchem's head with his comments, or is he just out to get his end of the perceived bargain fulfilled?