Phil Mickelson didn’t know this golf rule. Here’s why he was confused

In case you missed it, the governing our bodies instituted a slate of recent guidelines on Jan. 1 of this 12 months.

Among the biggies: chances are you’ll change a broken membership throughout a spherical, supplied you didn’t ding it up by abuse; if a ball at relaxation is moved by pure forces after being dropped, and involves relaxation out of bounds, the ball should be changed and performed from its authentic spot; and gamers are not penalized for failing to place their handicap on their scorecard in stroke play. Hurrah!

If you had been watching Phil Mickelson’s featured group protection from the PGA Championship on Friday, you might need been reminded of yet another of the 2023 guidelines modifications, the one which pertains to the back-on-the-line reduction process, most frequently used for penalty space and unplayable ball reduction. Under the modification, gamers might drop their ball anyplace alongside a line extending from the opening by the spot the place their ball final crossed the penalty space; the ball should come to relaxation inside one club-length of the place it was dropped, and if it hops nearer to the opening inside that club-length radius? No biggie. Leave or not it’s!

Simple, proper? And that was sort of the purpose. Previously the stipulations across the back-on-the-line dropping protocol had been extra nuanced. The new rule was rewritten to result in much less confusion.

Assuming, that’s, golfers know it.

Mickelson, for one, was not.

On Friday, after hooking his tee shot on Oak Hill’s bruising par-4 sixth right into a marshy penalty space proper of the green, Mickelson deemed his ball a goner and commenced prepping for a drop. (My colleague Sean Zak broke down the whole episode in fabulous detail here.) He appeared like a golfer very a lot answerable for the foundations as he put a tee within the first lower of tough alongside the road the place his ball had crossed into the penalty space. Then he positioned a second tee within the fairway a few club-lengths to the left of the place he had caught the primary peg. The six-time main winner was all enterprise.

“Two club-lengths on red, correct?” he mentioned to his enjoying companion, Rickie Fowler, referring to the red-staked penalty space.

Fowler, seemingly additionally unaware of the rule change, shot Mickelson a thumbs up.

Then issues received actually fascinating. As Mickelson was getting ready to play his subsequent shot, a guidelines official appeared and alerted Mickelson of his improper drop.

But Mickelson wasn’t having it.

“I don’t think that’s right,” he mentioned. “In fact, I know it’s not. You get a full semicircle on every drop.”

Well, yeah, till Dec. 31, 2022, you probably did. But not.

“Not going back on line,” the official countered. 

“You mark your spot, and then you get a full club length,” Mickelson mentioned, nonetheless incredulous. A number of moments later, he added: “I appreciate you stopping me and making sure I don’t make a mistake, but I don’t think that’s accurate. I think you get a semicircle on every drop.”

Mickelson thought improper. And when a second official, by means of radio, mentioned, “That rule changed,” Mickelson lastly started to come back round.

“This year?” Mickelson requested. “I never heard that.”

“It’s okay, you just dropped improperly,” the second official mentioned. “You can go ahead and move it back. You can operate back on the line and drop wherever you want to. But it’s going to be along that line.”

“Thanks for stopping me,” Mickelson mentioned. “I appreciate your help. Thank you.”

You could be tsk-tsking Mickelson for not realizing the foundations, however in his protection the back-on-the-line reduction process has modified twice within the final 4 years. Before 2019, the protocol mirrored what it’s as we speak. But from 2019 till the tip of ’22, golfers taking this kind of reduction needed to drop their balls within the semi-circle-shaped space that Mickelson referenced Friday.

As half its guidelines modernization efforts for 2023, the governing our bodies realized that they’d difficult issues by altering the back-on-the-line reduction rule — additionally, most golfers had continued to stay with the previous, less complicated process anyway — and thus the rulesmakers reverted the protocol to the outdated requirements.

Sensible transfer. As was the PGA guidelines official’s choice to intervene in Mickelson’s messiness. Had Mickelson performed on after having taken an incorrect drop, he’d have been assessed a one-stroke penalty that in the end would have value him a weekend tee time at Oak Hill.

Instead, Mickelson made the lower on the quantity — and realized a brand new rule as well. 

Alan Bastable

Golf.com Editor

As GOLF.com’s government editor, Bastable is accountable for the editorial path and voice of one of many recreation’s most revered and extremely trafficked information and repair websites. He wears many hats — modifying, writing, ideating, growing, daydreaming of in the future breaking 80 — and feels privileged to work with such an insanely gifted and hardworking group of writers, editors and producers. Before grabbing the reins at GOLF.com, he was the options editor at GOLF Magazine. A graduate of the University of Richmond and the Columbia School of Journalism, he lives in New Jersey along with his spouse and foursome of children.