Feckless Phil has no shame
Mickelson drags his sport into the mire with his puerile antics
TWENTY-FOUR hours after dragging his sport through the mire with his puerile behaviour on Saturday, the man we now know to be The Untouchable returned to the scene of his shame.
Faced with a 6ft putt for par on the 13th hole in the final round of the US Open yesterday, Phil Mickelson rolled it into the centre and raised his arms in triumphant mock salute, as he did when he won the Masters three times, and The British Open at Muirfield. Oh, what a card. What a wit. At least, that’s what the sycophants were saying on American television. Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, virtually everyone else who loves the game of gold just felt physically sick.
The fact he had turned up on the first tee at all following his actions in the third round told us that Mickelson had no shame — but to make light of it and rub everyone’s noses in it? That’s what happens when you have a craven governing body too afraid to stand up and do the right thing. You have players who believe they’re above the rules.
For anyone wrapped up completely in the World Cup on Saturday, a brief recap.
His ego bruised as his dream of winning the only major he is missing died for another year, Mickelson rapped a putt miles too hard on the 13th hole. Past the hole it went, towards its inevitable destiny off the front of the green. Mickelson couldn’t cope with that. Oh no. He jogged after it and knocked it back towards the hole while it was still moving.
On his 48th birthday, he had behaved like a two year old.
As former USGA chief executive David Fay explained to America’s watching television millions, there were at least a couple of grounds for thinking this was such a serious breach of the rules as to be worthy of disqualification.
‘I would certainly have been lobbying for that course of action,’ he said.
His old employers preferred to hide behind the semantics of rule 14-5 regarding striking a moving ball and handed him a two-shot penalty instead.
Would they have taken the same course of action if it had been one of the lesser lights — a no-name qualifier? I think we all know the answer to that one. What made it worse was that Mickelson opted for smart-aleckery afterwards rather than contrition.
He claimed he knew the rule and opted for the two-shot penalty rather than ‘going back and forth’.
On social and traditional media, the vast majority of people stood up for the integrity of the game.
The New York tabloids played a blinder.
‘Putthead,’ was the back page headline of one.
‘Mickelson sinks to a new low,’ chorused the local paper, Newsday.
Gradually, it dawned on people of the horrible can of worms the USGA’s act of appeasement has opened with their response to this incident.
Imagine at the Masters next year if the leader is on the back of the 15th green and hits his putt too hard towards the water.
Does he run after it, knock it back towards the hole and take the twostroke penalty?
That has now entered the realms of possibility given the alternative of having to go the other side of the hazard and the dicey shot back over the water that led to defending champion Sergio Garcia running up a 13 in April.
Not that such grotesque scenarios made any difference in the other universe, of course, where celebrity status is everything.
On the first tee, Mickelson was still given a warm reception.
‘We love you, Phil,’ screamed the New Yorkers, as he made his way round the course.
To be fair, there’s a lot to love about this Mickelson.
Over the decades, he’s always been one of my favourite golfers, and the fact he’s still competitive at his great age for a golfer speaks volumes for him.
But one day, and it probably won’t be too far in the future, it will surely occur to The Untouchable that he can’t act any way he sees fit without there being consequences.
This is the stain that will now never be removed from his reputation. Alongside his horrible act of mutiny against Ryder Cup captain Tom Watson at Gleneagles in 2014, these are the asterisks that will forever lie beside his name.
On this day, however, he walked into the clubhouse, signed for a one under par score of 69, composed himself for 15 minutes, and came out and talked to his family for 15 minutes. He then signed autographs for 30 minutes before walking past the waiting media at a pace comparable to the clip he had shown on the fateful 13th on Saturday, and without a backward glance.
One soul shouted: ‘Any regrets?’ ‘The real question is what am I going to do next,’ answered Mickelson, cryptically. ‘I don’t know.’
It was a response in keeping with his unfathomable behaviour on Saturday.