“it’s towards its end.”

Phil Mickelson is one of the most iconic golfers of his generation, but he’s now nearing the age of retirement, and he knows it.

During a recent interview, Phil Mickelson opened up a little bit as he nears the end of his professional golf career. While he couldn’t say exactly how long he will continue playing, he did admit that he is nearing retirement.

“I’m 53 now,” Mickelson said according to Golf.com, “And my career, you know, it’s — if I’m being truthful, it’s on — it’s — it’s — I’m a — it’s towards its end.”

And Mickelson seems to understand that professional golf will go on without him, and he’s excited about the future of the sport.

“I think there’s a lot of things that are going to transpire over the next five or 10 years,” Mickelson said. “I’m very bullish and excited about what that means for LIV Golf. But there’s also a lot of uncertainty. I think the things that I do know is I think the quality of the players will continue to get better each year. I think that the ability and the sites that we move throughout the world will continue to excite players and excite fans. We’ll be going to more countries outside of the United States that really are starving for world-class professional golf, and we’ll have a lot more receptions like we had at Adelaide [where LIV played last week].”

Obviously, it’s pretty significant to hear Mickelson discuss retirement like this, and it’s led to a lot of reactions on social media.

Champions Tour. Please. https://t.co/dbQqVrwgZI

— Kyle Broughton (@KyleBroughton4) May 3, 2024

We’ll have to see how long Mickelson continues to play, but it’s pretty clear that it won’t be all that long.