SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — Phil Mickelson caused the biggest stir of the U.S. Open when he putted his own moving ball on the 13th green at Shinnecock Hills on Saturday. Mickelson sent a 7-foot bogey putt well past the hole, and a downslope was set to carry it a long way farther. So the left-hander ran to it and whacked it back at the hole like a mini-golfer:
A remarkable sequence on Hole 13, where Phil Mickelson was assessed a two-stroke penalty for hitting a moving ball and ended up making a 10 on the hole. pic.twitter.com/kx6ieYiOGR
— U.S. Open (USGA) (@usopengolf) June 16, 2018
The USGA assessed Mickelson a two-stroke penalty, leading to a score of 10 on the hole. He was already 4 over for the day and well out of contention, and his sextuple-bogey set him on the path to a third-round 81 that left him dead last among players who’d made the cut.
Mickelson insists he didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings.
He told reporters in a massive media scrum afterward:
Look, I don’t mean disrespect to anybody. I know it’s a two-shot penalty. At that time, I just didn’t feel like going back and forth and hitting the same shot over. I took the two-shot penalty and moved on. It’s my understanding of the rules. I’ve had multiple times where I’ve wanted to do that. I just finally did.
He thought his ball was going to roll all the way off the green:
Oh, no question. It was going to go down in the same spot behind the bunker. I wasn’t going to have a shot. I don’t know if I was able to save a shot or not. I know it’s a two-shot penalty hitting a moving ball. I tried to hit it as close as I could on the next one, and you take the two shots and move on.
Someone asked Phil if he’d shown “disrespect for the championship,” whatever that is:
It’s certainly not meant that way. It’s meant to take advantage of the rules as best as you can. In that situation, I was just going back and forth. I would gladly take the two shots over continuing that display.
A top USGA rules official was clear that Mickelson only deserved a two-stroke penalty, not the disqualification some fans and media thought he’d get.
A group of reporters spoke with Mike Bodenhamer, the organization’s managing director of championships and governance. Bodenhamer laid out that the USGA punished Mickelson under a rule dealing specifically with players who take a stroke at a ball in motion, not a separate rule that allows for DQs when players intentionally flaunt the rulebook:
Our Rules Committee mobilized quickly and unanimously decided this situation is specifically and explicitly covered under [the ball-in-motion rule].
To go to [the DQ rule], Phil didn’t purposely deflect or stop the ball, which is talked about in the reference under [the ball-in-motion rule], if you look at it. [That rule] explicitly covers a player making a stroke at a moving ball, and so we operated under that rule.
Here’s more from Bodenhamer’s press conference, where he defended the ruling:
Q. Was his motivation relevant to the penalty, or is it -- if he was trying to help his score?
Bodenhamer: No. He played a golf ball that was moving. He made a stroke at a ball that was moving. We have not -- no, it wouldn’t.
Q. Did it enter into your calculation at all that he appeared to kind of run after the ball and make some running steps at it?
Bodenhamer: No. The fact that we dealt with was that he made a stroke at a moving ball.
Q. John, is there any other penalty that can be assessed to a player for misconduct if he did something, just to make a point? Is that something that you could penalize him for?
Bodenhamer: That can happen. That’s not what we operated under here. We are operating strictly under 14-5. It’s pretty clear he played a moving ball. It’s simply we’re operating on what we saw.
Q. If he used the rule to an advantage to make fewer strokes, is that something that has to do with intent or in some way abuses the rules that can be a violation in itself?
Bodenhamer: No. Again, the rule is clear. He made a stroke at a moving ball, and we just operated under that. Getting into intent there, we operated under what the rule said, him making a stroke in that manner.
(The USGA rulebook is a really fun and easily understandable read.)
Playing partner Andrew “Beef” Johnston just found the whole thing hilarious.
Johnston and Mickelson started laughing together almost immediately.
I said that’s one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen and then just started laughing, to be honest. I said, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to laugh at this.”
As a competitor, Johnston didn’t see any problem with Mickelson’s actions:
No, not at all. Again, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s something you might see at your home course with your mates or something. But it was just a moment -- I think it’s just a moment of madness. But it’s nothing disrespectful to me or to the U.S. Open or anything. It’s just one of them things that just happened.
Really, it brightened up a day where Johnston himself shot a 12-over 82. He came off the course laughing despite his miserable round.
You have to. Otherwise, I’ll be crying, and I felt like after 12, 13, holes, I felt like I really didn’t play that bad. And the difference from the first two days to this day is I hit it in all the wrong spots, just got on the wrong side of the pins, and it was an absolute nightmare from there. I think, if you don’t laugh here, you’ll end up going insane.
Bonus: A hole marshal who kept order at the 13th green during Mickelson’s escapade was as dumbfounded as anyone in the world.
“It was absolutely painful,” he told me. “That was the second time I’ve seen a pro do that. The first was John Daly.” (Daly famously did it at the 1999 U.S. Open at Pinehurst, making an 11 on the eighth hole and carding a final-round 81. Mickelson’s day was similar.
“People didn’t know the rule,” the marshal said:
“Oh, he hit the ball. Is that a penalty?”
“Yeah, it’s a two-stroke penalty. He hit the ball.”
The marshal offered one parting thought:
“You’re seeing the beginning of the end of Phil, unfortunately.”