Phil Mickelson claims LIV Golf is trending upwards vs. PGA Tour, but numbers paint a different picture

Lefty may think he's on the right side of things, but that doesn't appear to be true at the moment

Brooks Koepka won the LIV Golf Jeddah event over the weekend, which few people watched and even fewer attended. In a vacuum, this was strange moment in the sport: Koepka, a four-time major champion, led a terrific leaderboard -- Dustin Johnson, Sergio Garcia, Peter Uihlein, Matthew Wolff, Paul Casey and Joaquin Niemann -- that nevertheless lacked any buzz, even when Koepka got emotional about how difficult golf has been for him over the last two years.

That's not to say LIV Golf Jeddah didn't matter. It was clearly meaningful to its participants and those running the upstart league. However, something Phil Mickelson said earlier in the week kept reverberating as most of the sports world ignored the better story: Four-time major winner nearly cries after beating other major winners in $20 million golf tournament because he didn't know if he was ever going to play again.

Koepka's triumph was not the focus, though. Why is that?