Ashley Perez says Phil Mickelson crossed a line in 2015 when he texted her as if he were only being friendly, then escalated the conversation into something far more personal. Her account centers on a night during the Barclays tournament, when she says Mickelson sent good morning texts, showed her a naked full-body photo of himself and told her he wanted her to come to his bedroom after Pat Perez fell asleep.
The story matters again now because Pat Perez brought it back into public view in November 2022, and it is the version Ashley Perez has kept by her since then. She said she was 27 when she married Pat in 2014 and described herself as “this girl from Oklahoma,” saying she was young enough to feel flattered when Mickelson reached out and asked to be his buddy. Looking back, she said, it felt like grooming.
The setting was a golf trip, but the details Ashley Perez gave make it sound more like a private test of boundaries. Pat and Ashley stayed at Liberty National Golf Course during the 2015 Barclays tournament, while the tournament itself was played at Plainfield Country Club in Edison, NJ. Mickelson was nearby in a villa at Liberty National, where he was a member. Ashley Perez said Mickelson called her, not Pat, to say he had arranged for them to move to the villa, and that the three of them later sat up drinking red wine on the patio the night they arrived.
She said the most jarring moment came when Mickelson showed her a full-body photo of himself naked, with an erection, while flexing one bicep. She also said he told her, “I’m going to leave my bedroom door open tonight. When Pat falls asleep I want you to come see me.” Pat Perez said he did not confront Mickelson directly, and Ashley Perez said she told him about the photo only at the conclusion of the tournament.
That silence did not last forever. Pat Perez later said Mickelson apologized during a corporate outing at the Madison Club in La Quinta, California, but did so without admitting exactly what he had done. In November 2022, after Perez discussed the incident on Claude Harmon’s podcast, he said Mickelson had crossed a line that was “uncrossable and unforgivable.” When Pat told him Mickelson had shown Ashley a naked photo, Mickelson replied, “You mean topless?”
After Perez’s comments spread again, Mickelson called to apologize once more. Ashley Perez said she still has a recording of the 26-minute call. In it, she said, Mickelson moved back and forth between contrition and saying he did not remember the details of that night. He apologized directly to both Pat and Ashley Perez without admitting what he had done, and said, “I can’t tell you how disgusted and embarrassed I am in myself.” What remains unresolved is not whether the apology happened. It is what, if anything, he would say about the part of that night he says he cannot remember.
