Is Phil Mickelson Going Nuts?: Hitting a moving ball at US Open

[MacDutch]

Phil should have been DQ-ed and he should have withdrawn himself when the USGA did not.

Never rooted for him, cause I think he is fake. This adds to it.

Edited June 18, 2018 by MacDutch

[iacas]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

I don't think Erik is making too big of a deal.

I think there was a little sarcasm there from @turtleback.

Some decent posts in that discussion.

Not the ones from MM who bought Phil’s lies.

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/us-open-2018-the-usga-still-got-it-wrong-when-it-didnt-dq-phil-mickelson

[Groucho Valentine]

I admit..I LMAO when he did that. It was like watching a wreck in one of those NASCAR races. 

[boogielicious]

52 minutes ago, iacas said:

I think there was a little sarcasm there from @turtleback.

Some decent posts in that discussion.

Not the ones from MM who bought Phil’s lies.

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/us-open-2018-the-usga-still-got-it-wrong-when-it-didnt-dq-phil-mickelson

You and I know that it was sarcasm, but others may not. 

More: Wife states that PM offered to withdraw.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2781585-phil-mickelsons-wife-says-he-was-ready-to-withdraw-from-us-open-after-saturday

[ScouseJohnny]

6 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

You and I know that it was sarcasm, but others may not. 

More: Wife states that PM offered to withdraw.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2781585-phil-mickelsons-wife-says-he-was-ready-to-withdraw-from-us-open-after-saturday

Quote

"When he heard that he called [Davis] and said, 'If I've done something that crosses the line that much, then I need to withdraw immediately,'"

Surely that's for Mickelson himself to judge, too. He didn't have to "offer to withdraw," he could have just withdrawn.

Quote

"You know it's not his finest moment, but hopefully he'll learn from it. Like anybody, good people make mistakes.

That might almost fly for a 21 year old rookie. The man's almost 50 and has been playing golf most of his life. Now he's ready for his come to Jesus moment?

[iacas]

8 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

More: Wife states that PM offered to withdraw.

He should have. Saying he thought about it doesn't make it so.

@ScouseJohnny beat me to it.

[boogielicious]

7 minutes ago, iacas said:

He should have. Saying he thought about it doesn't make it so.

@ScouseJohnny beat me to it.

Agree.

[DeadMan]

I have a HOT TAKE on this.

Phil is kind of dumb. He clearly does not know the rules all that well, or he would have realized that a DQ was very possible and that taking an unplayable was a better option. I think because he's well spoken and media friendly, he gets a pass. Personally, he strikes me as someone who's going through this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect.

There's been more than just this incident to make me think this (e.g., insider trading), but this really solidifies it.

Plus, if he were actually smart, he would have withdrawn Sunday morning to universal acclaim...

Edited June 18, 2018 by DeadMan

[Hardluckster]

I think that when Phil slapped that moving ball, he had absolutely no idea what his penalty would be - and I don't think that he cared, at that moment in time. He simply lost his composure and had a complete brain freeze, I think. 

I'm of the opinion that this rule needs to be changed so that future occurences of this result in DQ. 

[krupa]

20 minutes ago, Hardluckster said:

I think that when Phil slapped that moving ball, he had absolutely no idea what his penalty would be

Andrew Johnston:

Quote

"[Phil] said, 'I don't know what score that is [for me]. I don't know what happens now.' And then he started speaking to the rules official. 

http://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/23814574/the-phil-mickelson-mess-2018-us-open-eyes-playing-partner-andrew-beef-johnston

 

[Squid_350]

Since I'm a hacker who has only seriously followed golf since 2015 or so, I've kind of gotten the perspective that the US Open being raged on by players and Phil having some kind of blowup is normal and expected. 

I'd probably feel differently if he'd actually wound up in contention after taking the penalty. Instead its more of a chuckle. 

[rehmwa]

What an entertaining act that was.

Actions - Phil got frustrated and made a mistake, he found out what the penalty was and accepted it without complaint.  I'm good with that aspect - as it is.....

Did the USGA apply the wrong penalty?  That's on them, not Phil.  What is on Phil is he could have DQ'd himself if he thought the USGA made a mistake.  I don't see that from any pro, the USGA gave him an out and he took it.  I'm done with this part for the tournament itself.  He was ready to if the USGA said so.  fine.  YMMV.

The Interview - This one bugged me.  He pretty much took the ruling and then rationalized his actions.  It was clear in the first interview he was backed into a corner and was scrambling to put anything not damning into his answers.  Like most things that spin out of control - he might have been best off to go off for the night.  Then the next day could have made a better comment without the wolves slavering at him and giving himself a bit more thought.  I'd have preferred a simple comment that admitted he lost his cool made a mistake and accepted the USGA's penalty.  (nothing more, no silly act of contrition or self flagellation beyond that.  Just own the mistake and take the strokes and try to finish the tournment as best he can).

(in general, I'm always harder on the media than the players in every case, I'm not impressed with most of the media members and get turned off with their reactions almost every time - I do let that color my response to situations like this.  It would be classier for them to let the events cool down before going on attack and I think that would allow all these players the time to get more mature responses - and phrasing is as 'disrespect' to the event or game is just trolling.  Ask what happened and let the player provide information, stop trolling and being dicks).

 

Edited June 18, 2018 by rehmwa

[colin007]

50 minutes ago, Hardluckster said:

I think that when Phil slapped that moving ball, he had absolutely no idea what his penalty would be - and I don't think that he cared, at that moment in time. He simply lost his composure and had a complete brain freeze, I think. 

I'm of the opinion that this rule needs to be changed so that future occurences of this result in DQ. 

That's p much exactly what happened.

 

Also, the RoG need to be amended. Rule 1-1 needs to now say "Don't be a dick".

[iacas]

15 minutes ago, rehmwa said:

(in general, I'm always harder on the media than the players in every case, I'm not impressed with most of the media members and get turned off with their reactions almost every time - I do let that color my response to situations like this.  It would be classier for them to let the events cool down before going on attack and I think that would allow all these players the time to get more mature responses - and phrasing is as 'disrespect' to the event or game is just trolling.  Ask what happened and let the player provide information, stop trolling and being dicks).

No.

It was on the 13th hole, and Phil waited in the scoring tent with a BS reason about "getting a little to eat and drink" for half an hour before coming out to meet with the press.

No self-respecting member of the press would "wait" until the next morning or something to ask about an event that's hot news.

[fishgolf]

13 hours ago, Vinsk said:

Neither would Phil being DQ’d.

Well, that was discussed and decided on.  Even Phil asked if that should be the case. 

Now regarding the rules involved with this, I think they need to be changed.  Consider for a moment that Phil was a couple strokes within the cut line on Friday and he does this.  Of course no one can know whether not doing this results in say a subsequent 3 putt - moving him below the cut. I think any deliberate act to hit a moving ball should result in a DQ. I suspect it will get changed and be known as "The Phil Rule".  Having that moniker attached to his career would be worse punishment.

Edited June 18, 2018 by fishgolf
final thought

[billchao]

1 hour ago, boogielicious said:

More: Wife states that PM offered to withdraw.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2781585-phil-mickelsons-wife-says-he-was-ready-to-withdraw-from-us-open-after-saturday

Feels disingenuous at this point, like he knew the right thing to do, but the USGA convinced him it was ok to play, so blame it on them for not disqualifying him and later talking him out of withdrawing.

That's the problem when people get caught in a lie. I can't help but look at everything that comes out of his camp differently now.

[krupa]

In baseball, if a pitcher hits a batter with a wild pitch, the runner takes a base.  But if it's deemed that the pitcher intentionally hit the batter, the batter gets his base and the pitcher is thrown out of the game.

While I don't think the move was premeditated it was certainly intentional and therefore unsportsmanlike and, in my opinion, he should have been DQ'd.

 

[iacas]

9 minutes ago, fishgolf said:

Now regarding the rules involved with this, I think they need to be changed.  Consider for a moment that Phil was a couple strokes within the cut line on Friday and he does this.  Of course no one can know whether not doing this results in say a subsequent 3 putt - moving him below the cut. I think any deliberate act to hit a moving ball should result in a DQ. I suspect it will get changed and be known as "The Phil Rule".  Having that moniker attached to his career would be worse punishment.

This is one of the situations where some subjectivity has to come into play.

If your ball is a few inches from a deep divot and on a sloped fairway, and the ball via a gust of wind starts moving toward the deep divot, and you rush your swing by cutting off your pre-shot routine, that's deliberate. That's a different beast than what Phil did. I agree that the act I described is covered by 14-5. What Phil did I think warrants 1-2 consideration.

There's a principle that the penalty given should be higher than any savings of strokes. For example, though maybe you'd have never been able to extricate your ball from the divot, with a stroke penalty you could have dropped away from the divot, behind the divot, etc. to play from there with the unplayable ball rule. So two strokes for hitting a moving ball is > the one stroke penalty you could opt to take (or by advancing the ball via an actual stroke a few feet, even if backward, or sideways).

In Phil's case the penalty may not have been greater than his actions. There was no guarantee he could take an unplayable and hole the next shot, or even that he could get down in six.