At the United States Open on Saturday afternoon, the golf world watched Phil Mickelson melt down: He jogged after yet another errant putt and shockingly swatted the moving ball back toward the hole with his putter.
It was one of dozens of missed putts in the last three days by Mickelson, and his response to yet another disappointment was familiar to any golfer.
He snapped. It was an act of frustration.
For such a serious breach of golf’s rules, Mickelson could have been disqualified from the championship. In a technicality, or a generous rules interpretation by the United States Golf Association, Mickelson was assessed only a two-stroke penalty and allowed to play on.
But the bigger damage came after Mickelson’s third round at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club ended with a discomforting score of 81, which left him a humiliating 17 over par for the tournament. It was at this moment that Mickelson beseeched his peers, the greater golf community and his legion of fans to believe that his slap at a moving ball was actually a calculated, astute use of the rules — just another way for a PGA Tour veteran to save a few strokes.
Mickelson insisted he had not acted in haste or irritation. Instead, he said, he knew that the penalty for striking a moving ball was two strokes, and he had quickly determined that was a better result than letting his wayward putt roll off the green into worse shape. (There is a separate rule for stopping or deflecting a moving ball that could have led to a disqualification, but officials determined that Mickelson had violated the rule for striking a moving ball, not the one for stopping or deflecting one.)
“I’ve thought about doing the same thing many times in my career,” Mickelson said about striking rather than stopping his moving ball. “I just did it this time. It was something I did to take advantage of the rules as best I can.”
It is an explanation that stretches credulity, to put it nicely.
For perspective, let’s flip the script. Would you believe that answer if it came from Tiger Woods?
