This Photo of Phil Mickelson and Collin Morikawa Became a Meme Before PGA Championship

The annual champions dinner at the PGA Championship took place on Tuesday night—hosted by last year’s winner, Justin Thomas—and a hilarious photo emerged from the players’ arrival.
The snapshot, captured by Golf.com’s Claire Rogers, features Phil Mickelson chatting to Collin Morikawa and Rory McIlroy talking to PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan.
Although the McIlroy-Monahan portion of the photograph is interesting in its own right—considering McIlroy’s succinct comments in his pre-PGA press conference—the right half of the picture is what really got fans talking.
Mickelson, a LIV golfer, appears to be telling Morikawa something that he is less than excited to hear about, and social media users ran with it. Mickelson is also wearing a dark suit and tie, an outfit choice that didn't exactly align with what the rest of the crew put on for the evening.
In general, it’s an understatement to say that such a group of individuals is an unlikely crew, but that’s just the nature of such a dinner.
Some photos are worth a zillion words pic.twitter.com/ETneKvz2JV
— claire rogers (@kclairerogers) May 16, 2023
As many fans noted, there is almost too much to unpack in the photo, which is exactly why it was an immediate hit on the internet.
Here are some of the best memes that emerged from golf’s latest viral moment:
Phil looks like the guy at LaGuardia trying to convince Collin to hop in his “uber” back to the city for only $50 cash. pic.twitter.com/kH7Vb2x3qG
— Dan Rapaport (@Daniel_Rapaport) May 16, 2023
“It’s not a pyramid scheme, it’s an inverted funnel strategy…” pic.twitter.com/xOADQwVeWS
— No Laying Up (@NoLayingUp) May 16, 2023
"Olive is actually on my list of aggressive colors." pic.twitter.com/SvEOH6z0Rv
— Kyle Porter (@KylePorterCBS) May 16, 2023
"Look, if you mine Dogecoin as a hobby, you'll report it as 'other income' on line 21 of Form 1040 Schedule 1. On the other hand, if you're mining Doge through a business, you'll have to report the income on Schedule C..." https://t.co/0QArLknK1n pic.twitter.com/SayHVoM1Fz
— Dylan Dethier (@dylan_dethier) May 16, 2023
Phil is morphing into De Niro at the end of Casino pic.twitter.com/OLr6hP1vY7
— Bunkie Perkins (@BunkiePerkins) May 16, 2023
"And here's the thing Collin, for only $500,000, you can get $5,000,000 worth of the digital currency that's taking Malaysia by storm." https://t.co/Bdc27M7Fjt
— Joel Beall (@JoelMBeall) May 16, 2023

Gabrielle Herzig is a Breaking and Trending News writer for Sports Illustrated Golf. Previously, she worked as a Golf Digest Contributing Editor, an NBC Sports Digital Editorial Intern, and a Production Runner for FOX Sports at the site of the 2018 U.S. Open. Gabrielle graduated as a Politics Major from Pomona College in Claremont, California, where she was a four-year member and senior-year captain of the Pomona-Pitzer women’s golf team. In her junior year, Gabrielle studied abroad in Scotland for three months, where she explored the Home of Golf by joining the Edinburgh University Golf Club.
Follow GabbyHerzig