Frustration at its finest.
On his 48th birthday, Phil Mickelson endured a testing afternoon in the US Open at Shinnecock Hills.
The American golfer narrowly made the cut to the weekend’s action, but on moving day he was only moving one way and that was backwards. He’s currently rooted at the very bottom of the leaderboard on +15 after 14 holes of his third round.
Contributing to his downfall was a meltdown on the par four 13th. After racing his bogey putt past the hole, he bizarrely and inexplicably jogged down after his ball before putting it back up the hill while it was still rolling.
His irritation was undoubtedly borne out of his struggles prior to that point of his round and while it’s something that all golfers have been tempted to do while their ball zaps past the hole, the majority resist the temptation.
It’s the type of thing you’d see a stroppy youngster perform, frustrated at their putt not going into the hole. In fairness to Mickelson, the best aren’t immune to a brain freeze or a meltdown and he’ll surely put his act down to something like that.
Wow. I've never seen that before.
Phil Mickelson ran after his putt before it stopped, which is a two stroke penalty.
Really, really odd #USOpen pic.twitter.com/Hu08036qjo
— Cam Rogers (@CamRogersLive) June 16, 2018
He was immediately issued with a two shot penalty for his actions and he’s surely longing for the clubhouse now.
It was a very uncharacteristic error by Mickelson, who usually cuts a cool, calm and collected figure on the course.
