In an interview on President Barack Obama’s inauguration day, Phil Mickelson hinted at potentially retiring because of the increased taxation that he will face in now.
“I’m not going to jump the gun and do it right away, but there are going to be some drastic changes for me because I happen to be in that zone that has been targeted both federally and by the state. And, you know, it doesn’t work for me right now. So I’m going to have to make some changes.”
“If you add up all the federal and you look at the disability and the unemployment and the Social Security and state, my tax rate is 62, 63 percent,” Mickelson said. “So I’ve got to make some decisions on what to do.”
Fellow golfer Steve Stricker went into semi-retirement this offseason because of similar issues. When Mickelson was asked if Stricker’s decision was going to influence his, he replied:
“It’s been an interesting off-season, you know, I think that we’re all going to have our own way of handling things, handling time in our career, our family, handling what’s going on the last couple of months politically. I think we’re all going to have to find things that work for us.”
Mickelson was going to be a part of a group that bought his hometown San Diego Padres but backed out reportedly because of the election results. It will be interesting to see how this Mickelson situation will play out and if any other athletes would consider doing the same thing.