Phil Mickelson's ball switch an honest mistake

— -- Phil Mickelson is not one to play loose with the rules, but he is more than shrewd enough to take advantage of them when it suits his purpose.

As it pertains to the Presidents Cup one-ball mistake in South Korea on Friday, consider it a case of Lefty outsmarting himself.

Mickelson, a captain's pick of Jay Haas, has never missed the Presidents Cup since its inception in 1994 and has also been part of every U.S. Ryder Cup team during that stretch. But Mickelson made a rookie mistake that ultimately cost him and Zach Johnson a full point in their four-ball match against Jason Day and Adam Scott.

But Mickelson's error was not due to ignorance -- which in just about any other scenario would have been the likely reason -- but rather due to outthinking himself and not realizing that the "one-ball condition" was in effect for the Presidents Cup when he switched to a longer-distance ball for a par 5.

At the Ryder Cup next year at Hazeltine -- or the one three years ago at Medinah -- that "condition of play" was not in use. Mickelson could have done exactly what he did at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea and been fine. His mistake ended up costing the Americans two holes -- a rare ruling in itself -- in a match they ultimately halved.

"The PGA of America doesn't have a one-ball rule," Mickelson told reporters at the Presidents Cup, referring to the organization that runs the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup when it is played in the United States. "You can play 18 different balls, brands, whatever, on 18 different holes during the PGA Championship and the Ryder Cup. So this threw me for a loop that we have a one-ball that we've never really had, and I didn't think much about it.

"But it's my responsibility to know that. I should have at least asked about it before I teed off. It just had never been a thought for me as a player, but that's your job to know that."

Mickelson knows the rules. And he knew exactly what he was doing when he teed off on the seventh hole. Why else would he have a different golf ball in his bag?

That's one mistake a golfer at the pro level never makes. There is no sense in having different types of golf balls because all pro tours use what's called a "condition of competition" that requires you to use the same brand and type of ball throughout a round. You can't switch them out from hole to hole, and having a different ball in the bag could lead to an inadvertent error.

The "one-ball rule" is not part of the Rules of Golf. Most amateur events allow you to change golf balls from one tee to the next, although not during the playing of a hole. And pro tours mostly do not allow players to use more than one golf ball at tournaments.

However, even the pro level allows two notable exceptions, the PGA Championship and U.S.-based Ryder Cups. The organization simply chooses not to apply it.

The PGA of America decided in 2007 to not adopt the one-ball condition at its championships, including the PGA, according to Kerry Haigh, the PGA's chief championships officer. Since 2008, the one-ball condition has not been in effect for any Ryder Cup played in the United States.

"We feel that if a player is skilled enough to be able to hit and adapt his/her game to different compression or makes of golf ball from hole to hole, then he/she should be able to do so," Haigh said in an email. "If there is any advantage to changing balls between holes (or when the rules allow), then that same advantage is available to the entire field."

Haigh made clear that the "one-ball condition" is not part of the Rules of Golf but is simply a condition that committees of tournaments can choose to adopt as the PGA Tour, European Tour and other major golf championships have done.

"The Rules of Golf allow a player to change golf balls between holes," Haigh said. "Why adopt the conditions unless there is a good reason to do so?"

All of this exonerates Mickelson in the sense that he simply got his competitions mixed up. And it doesn't help that switching golf balls is allowed during the foursomes competition that was played Thursday. In other words, a different ball can be used in what is generally referred to as alternate shot through the hole. (On Saturday, both foursomes and four-ball formats will be used.)

"Yesterday we were switching the balls every hole," Mickelson said. "I thought, I'm going to go with a firmer ball in the wind [on Friday at the seventh]. [Johnson] is going to be laying up. I wanted to see if I can get there in two. That's our thought process."

And that is where Mickelson outsmarted himself.

It was a coy move to have another ball in his bag, thinking it could help him somewhere on the course. The problem was, switching isn't allowed at the Presidents Cup -- and Mickelson never thought to ask until it was too late.

"As we were walking down after I hit it, I just thought, 'Gosh, I'm sure there's no one-ball rule,'" Mickelson said. "But I was with Captain Haas, and I said, 'Would you just check.' And sure enough, there's a one-ball rule."

That led to a confusing scenario in which Mickelson was incorrectly told he could not complete the hole, which the U.S. lost, and was compounded by the penalty for such a breach -- a one-hole "adjustment" of the match.

So whether Mickelson and Johnson had won, lost or halved the hole, they were going to be docked a lost hole on top of the outcome. The fact that Mickelson was told he was disqualified meant he could not make a tying birdie, which would have halved the hole.

This isn't a controversy like the one that occurred at the 1991 Ryder Cup, where Seve Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal accused Paul Azinger and Chip Beck of switching golf balls from one tee to the next. They were playing foursomes -- which at the time did not allow for such a switch. The Americans were accused of gamesmanship.

The rule was changed at the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup starting in 2006 to allow for such switches in foursomes only.

You could call this gamesmanship on Mickelson's part, although he was clearly trying to do something he thought was within the rules at the Presidents Cup. If he was trying to get away with something, he would have never brought it up, and it's unlikely anyone would have noticed. It would have taken a keen observer to look for and discern the difference in Callaway golf balls that Mickelson used.

The bottom line is that Mickelson and Johnson were all square walking to the seventh tee and headed to the eighth tee 2-down.

But they rallied -- Mickelson holed an approach shot from a fairway bunker at the 12th hole to take a 1-up lead, which was brought back to even when Day birdied the 15th hole.

The match ended in a tie, and Mickelson attempted to get the last laugh.

"I felt like we spotted the Internationals' best team two holes and they still couldn't beat us," he said. "Just saying."