Phil Mickelson Is Out of the PGA Championship, and Max Homa Just Got a Very Late Lifeline

Image: BBC Sport / Getty Images

Phil Mickelson will not play the 2026 PGA Championship, and the bigger point here is not gossip.

It is that one of the most important major-championship characters of the last quarter-century is now missing his second major of 2026 for the same family reason that kept him out of the Masters.

According to BBC Sport on May 5, 2026, Mickelson withdrew because of “a personal health matter with his family.” The PGA Championship’s official field release, also published May 5, had listed him in the initial 154-player field for Aronimink Golf Club in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, with two spots still reserved for this week’s Truist Championship and Myrtle Beach Classic winners. Mickelson’s withdrawal later opened the door for Max Homa, who had been first alternate.

This piece is based on the official PGA Championship field list and the BBC Sport withdrawal report, both checked on May 6, 2026. No pretending I got a text from somebody inside a family situation that is obviously not my business.

The Golf Story Is Simple Even if the Personal Story Is Not

Mickelson is a two-time PGA Championship winner, and the second title still hangs over this event more than people realize.

His 2021 win at Kiawah did not just make for a nice nostalgia hit. It changed the way golf talks about age, late-career relevance, and what a major week can still become when a legend refuses to act his age. So when he misses Aronimink, it is not nothing. It removes a guy who has historically made this championship weirder and more entertaining than it should be.

At the same time, this is not the kind of story that needs fake drama layered on top.

The only fact that really matters is that Mickelson is still away because of a family health matter, and there is no decent reason to turn that into content sludge.

Max Homa Gets the Break Even if It Does Not Feel Like a Fun One

The competitive wrinkle is Homa.

The official field list had him as the first alternate, and the withdrawal moved him into the championship. That is a meaningful late-week swing because it turns a guy who was outside the rope into a player with one more chance to reset a season that has not exactly felt clean.

That part is real news.

Not because Homa suddenly becomes a contender by magic, but because majors are still the fastest way to reboot how a player is being discussed. A month from now, nobody will care how he got in if he actually plays well.

Golf is brutal like that. The opening can arrive through somebody else’s bad news, and the obligation is still to do something with it.

This Keeps Stretching a Pretty Strange 2026 for Phil

Mickelson has barely played.

BBC’s report notes that he has made just one start in 2026, at LIV Golf South Africa in March, after also sitting out the first four LIV events of the season. That follows the earlier break we covered when Mickelson withdrew from the Masters.

That earlier Masters absence already left Augusta without both Mickelson and Tiger Woods, which felt historically weird. Missing the PGA Championship too extends the same reality:

• Phil is still not back in any normal sense
• there is still no clear timetable
• golf keeps moving without one of its loudest old stars in the room

That does not mean his era is over forever. It does mean the sport is spending more of 2026 without him than with him.

Aronimink’s Field Is Still Loaded

This is where the tournament-specific part matters.

Mickelson’s exit does not hollow out the week. The PGA of America field release still includes:

• Rory McIlroy
• Scottie Scheffler
• Xander Schauffele
• Bryson DeChambeau
• Jon Rahm
• Cameron Young
• Jordan Spieth

So this is not some catastrophe for the championship itself. If anything, Aronimink still looks like one of the strongest fields of the year, and the week before it is already loaded with buildup thanks to Rory returning to Quail Hollow and Cameron Young suddenly looking like a genuine problem.

But Mickelson’s absence still changes the flavor.

He may not have been entering as a serious favorite, yet he remains one of the few players who can make a major feel bigger just by existing on the property.

Bottom Line

Phil Mickelson withdrew from the 2026 PGA Championship on May 5 because of a family health matter, and Max Homa moved into the field as the first alternate.

That is the golf update.

The bigger human takeaway is simpler: this is now the second major in a row Mickelson has missed for the same family reason, and there is still no obvious sign that his 2026 schedule is getting normal anytime soon.

For more on where the major-season conversation is heading, read our recent pieces on Rory’s Quail Hollow problem for everybody else, Jon Rahm’s latest LIV win, and why Cameron Young stopped feeling like a someday story.