The International team wound up winning two holes in one at the Presidents Cup yesterday when Phil Mickelson did not know the rules.
Mickelson was not aware of the one-ball condition for his four-balls match, switching to a different model to give him a better chance of reaching the par-five seventh green. The rules committee made a mistake of its own to compound the error in a bizarre sequence of events.
The result was that Jason Day and Adam Scott went from all square to 2-up in just one hole.
Mickelson’s mistake wound up costing the US team a half-point when the match ended in a draw.
“It’s a strange situation,” PGA Tour vice president of rules and competition Mark Russell said.
The one-ball condition means that players cannot switch golf ball models during the round. The penalty is known as a one-hole adjustment. So when Mickelson realized he was playing with a different ball, the International team was to be awarded one hole.
That was bad enough.
Then, match referee Gary Young consulted with the rules committee and Russell said he told him that Mickelson was disqualified from the hole.
Russell said he checked with other officials on the committee and they concurred.
Only later did they realize Mickelson should have been allowed to complete the hole.
Day won it with a birdie to go 1-up over Mickelson and Zach Johnson, and it became 2-up because of the one-hole adjustment.
Mickelson did not think anything of the rule when he put a different ball in play, mainly because there is not a one-ball rule at the PGA Championship or the Ryder Cup when it is held in the US. Only when he was walking down the seventh fairway and saw US captain Jay Haas did he think to ask.
“I’m sure it’s not an issue,” Mickelson said he was thinking. “And it turns out that there was a one-ball rule and it was an issue. Obviously as a player, you need to know that. You need to know the rules, and if you have a question, you do it beforehand.”
Later, Bae Sang-moon delivered the biggest moment of his career to put the International team back in business.
Bae made a dynamic debut at home in his first Presidents Cup by making a 12-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole to win the match, helping the International team win its first team session in four years and pull within one point of the US.
“I knew it was a really, really big putt,” Bae said, playing for the last time before he starts his mandatory military service.
Branden Grace and Louis Oosthuizen set the tone with a big win over Jordan Spieth and Justin Johnson, while Charl Schwartzel and Thongchai Jaidee picked up another win in the anchor match.
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