PARAMUS, N.J. -- After years of avoiding social media, Phil Mickelson has joined Twitter -- with plans to add Facebook and Instagram accounts as well.
The Hall of Fame golfer, who has 43 PGA Tour titles and five major championships, came around to the idea recently. On Wednesday, his first day on Twitter, he used the opportunity for some friendly banter with Tiger Woods over their proposed winner-take-all match later this year.
"I've stayed off of social media, but after looking at it there is so much more good that far outweighs the bad," said Mickelson, who is playing in the Northern Trust tournament at Ridgewood Country Club. "So I'm in."
In one day, Mickelson's Twitter followers climbed over 100,000. Woods, who has been on Twitter since 2009, has more than 6.2 million followers.
Woods is not prolific on social media, and it is unclear how much Mickelson will be active.
But he did acknowledge he will attempt to be careful.
"I'll have a filter," he said. "It is directly from me but I'll go through a filter as a safety thing for me. I can easily get in trouble. Some people don't get my sense of humor, some people take it a different way. It can mean something totally different when it's written, so I need somebody to kind of check and make sure what I'm saying is OK.
"And even then there will be some stupid things that fall through the cracks. But I still think the good outweighs the bad."
Mickelson, 48, who is ranked 22nd in the world, won the WGC-Mexico Championship earlier this year but has had just one top-10 finish since and missed the cut two weeks ago at the PGA Championship. He entered the FedEx Cup playoffs 11th in the points standings.
