McCarron's shots at Mickelson fly way out of bounds

SAN DIEGO -- Phil Mickelson is many things.

Half a goofball at times. A magician, risk-taker and adrenaline junkie at others. After all, the dude once showed up for a major championship with two drivers in his bag, then played another Grand Slam event with zero. He once broke a leg snow-skiing in the middle of golf season.

Mickelson may be many things but a cheater isn't one of them. (Getty Images)

But he is not, by any implausible stretch of a torqued and twisted imagination of the most left-wing conspiracy nut, a cheater.

Underscoring the uneven lunacy of the new grooves rule that was enacted on the professional tours Jan. 1, Mickelson showed up for his PGA Tour season opener with a 20-year-old Ping wedge in his bag, a club that is non-conforming but nonetheless exempt from the new equipment stipulation.

Though other players have used the same wedges this year, the game's No. 2 player was held up not only as a bad example, but as a guy who improperly bent the rule to exploit an advantage.

"It's cheating, and I'm appalled Phil has put it in play," veteran Scott McCarron told the San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday.

In golf circles, he might as well have characterized Mickelson as a bank robber who didn't wear a mask, somebody who is brazenly taking money off the table of others. In a roundabout way, that's what McCarron, a member of the PGA Tour's 16-man Player Advisory Council, has done.

Frankly, it's unfair and absurd. This isn't bonny and Phil isn't Clyde.

Given a chance to retract the inflammatory C-word after he missed the cut Friday at the Farmers Insurance Open, McCarron tersely held his ground and insisted the silent majority of players feel similarly about the use of old Ping wedges, which have the old square-groove patterns that supposedly impart more spin on the ball.

It's all about the backspin, and McCarron isn't spinning it any other way. But his verbal shots at Lefty are akin to pulling a club from the bag and swinging away, then worrying about the yardage to the flag.

"I think cheating is not the right word to use," Robert Allenby said.

But the pejorative term's out there, and it's a word that had few shades of gray in a hard-line game that takes a dim view on rule-breakers. The new rule is even more clear, and while it's somewhat confusing and borderline hysterical that crusty old Pings were exempted, the revision is as clear as the view off the Pacific bluffs on Friday.

The club Mickelson placed in his bag is on the USGA list of conforming clubs. End of story. We can argue whether it violates the spirit of the law, which is another matter entirely, but there is nothing prohibiting the entire tour from switching to 1990-vintage Ping Eye 2 wedges if they can find 'em. The clubs are grandfathered in as a result of the manufacturer's lawsuit against the U.S. Golf Association two decades ago.

It's written in legalese, but in black and white. Given a chance to backpedal, McCarron said only that he never specifically called Mickelson a cheater, per se, which is really splitting hairs. If only he had been so careful in his interpretation of the rule.

"I think it's cheating," he told the Chronicle a day earlier. "All those guys should be ashamed of themselves for doing that. As one of our premier players, [Mickelson] should be one of the guys who steps up and says this is wrong."

Hunter Mahan, Mark Calcavecchia, Brad Adamonis, Dean Wilson and John Daly are among those who have used the old Ping wedges in live play this season. But they aren't ranked No. 2 in the world, like Mickelson. Somehow, Mickelson refused to be dragged into mud-slinging with McCarron, who clearly should have aimed his discontent at the generals, not the foot soldiers.

"To bring it up publicly and name-call, I'm not going to go that route," Mickelson said.

Good for him. McCarron's missive was well-intended, because the rules loophole is moronic, but besmirching the reputation of Mickelson, who has never been associated with a controversial rules issue, is ridiculous.

"It [the wedge] was approved because of a lawsuit," McCarron explained Friday. "I don't think it's in the spirit of the rules. The USGA made this rule. They made it for a reason. Golf is a gentlemen's game. I don't think anybody should be using it."

McCarron isn't in charge of thinking on the tour, of course, and there's a decent chance he will be sanctioned for essentially slandering Mickelson with such an incendiary accusation. He ought to know better -- he is a former member of the tour's Policy Board, which is the organization's equivalent to Congress.

Typical of the testosterone-challenged leadership at the tour, it had no comment on McCarron's accusations and it'll be interesting to see what officials do from here, since it isn't exactly known for taking bold stances on anything that makes the cast and crew of the Good Ship Lollipop look bad.

A million years ago, former Ryder Cup player Ken Green was suspended for one month for characterizing Hall of Famer Ray Floyd as a cheater after Floyd took a controversial penalty drop at Doral. The tour's lone comment on the matter was that it would monitor the Ping exemption and possibly consider banning the clubs from future use in tour-run events, which is within its power.

Make no mistake. Plenty of other folks share McCarron's sentiments, but they specifically declined to use Mickelson as a whipping boy.

"I just believe that even if they are legal you shouldn't be using them," Allenby said. "Just because someone has a couple sitting in their garage or somewhere or they got them off eBay, I don't think that's the integrity of the game." Interesting choice of words. Steve Loy, Mickelson's manager and former college coach at Arizona State, paused for a moment when McCarron's verbal grenade was broached.

"Somebody needs to stand up and see the facts, because as anybody who follows the game knows, there's nobody who respects the game and upholds its integrity more than Phil does," Loy said.

Mickelson indicated the difference in performance with the old Ping wedge was negligible and that he might bench the 64-degree club down the road. How good can dull, 20-year-old grooves be, after all?

If they are so terrific, why did Daly claim he was quitting the game after missing the cut Friday?

A New York tabloid, at the height of Tiger Woods' offseason scandal, called him a cheetah. The world No. 2, who has enough pressure on him to carry the tour torch while Woods is out, is no cheater.

Repeatedly taking the high road, Mickelson directed his comments at the folks who are mostly responsible for this predicament, the rules-makers. As of Jan. 1, golf has a set of rules for amateurs and professionals, non-conforming Ping wedges have been deemed to be conforming, certain clubs produced last fall that technically satisfied the new grooves specs have been banned, and so forth.

Mickelson has beaten the drum on most of these points for months, so don't beat him up for adhering to the letter of the new law to his best advantage. A serious tech geek about club technology, he knows the rule better than almost anybody.

"I don't appreciate the governing bodies putting me or any other players in this position, calling into question our integrity over a rule they made, over a club that they've approved," he said. "I don't appreciate that."