Two months after taking on a coaching role at Arizona State as an assistant under his brother, Phil Mickelson has been relieved of his duties.
In November, Arizona State announced that the five-time major winner would join its coaching staff, led by head coach Tim Mickelson.
The move was largely a recruiting ploy, with Phil responsible for making calls to prospective golfers in an interim basis until Tim could fill the position with a full-time hire.
However, the US Ryder Cup star has since been dismissed and he made light of the situation on Wednesday ahead of the Phoenix Open.
"Yes, I recently got fired from that position," a laughing Mickelson told reporters.
A few days before Arizona announced Mickelson's hire, Ryan Ruffels, a 16-year-old American-born amateur living in Australia, tweeted that he had just received a call from the 44-year-old.
That, apparently, neccesitated Mickelson's official title so to be sure his brother's program would be clear of any NCAA recruiting violations.
"We had developed a plan to where I could call some recruits," explained Phil.
"We weren't really going to say anything and hadn't said anything for a few weeks until one of the players had tweeted it and it looked like there were some improprieties, which there weren't. So we had to publicly announce I was assistant coach, otherwise I wouldn't be able to make the phone calls I had been making.
"As of the first week of January, Tim, my brother, needed a real assistant to help out with a bunch of the things going on with the travelling and I got fired."
Tim Mickelson has since filled the assistant position with a full-time hire. This time, there was no announcement from Arizona State.