What would Jack have done?

I don’t care that the rules say Phil Mickelson is right, I think he’s wrong.

Mickelson is at the centre of a massive controversy because of his decision to circumvent the new rule on the dimensions of grooves on iron clubs by putting a 20-year-old club into play.

At the heart of the matter is a Ping-Eye 2 wedge with square grooves that was outlawed for a long while but which is now considered legal because of a court ruling made in 1990.

That was when the USGA and the Royal & Ancient became involved in a bruising and massively expensive lawsuit over the grooves in the Ping-Eye 2 wedges.

The parties eventually came to a settlement, part of which held that clubs made before April 1, 1990 would be legal for play – largely because so many of the clubs were in circulation and the ruling bodies could ill afford another battle with their constituents.

And boy could those Ping-Eye 2s spin the ball! With the wound balls in play at the time there were those who could get “trû-tol” on a snooker table!

The USGA put a new rule into place this year specifying V-shaped grooves largely to protect the game against the rip-it-and-gouge-it brigade because the less refractory clubs would impart much less spin out of grassy lies.

However someone remembered the ruling on those vintage Pings and in the Bob Hope John Daly (who is now a Ping staffer) and Dean Wilson put them into play.

Mickelson then decided to do the same at Torrey Pines; prompting Scott McCarron, who is a member of the Tour’s advisory panel, to verbalize his dissatisfaction (and probably also that of a good few others) but rather unwisely introducing the word “cheat.”

Mickelson defended himself by pointing out that he was not playing an illegal club and was subsequently defended by the PGA, who clearly see Mickelson as their marquee player while Tiger Woods is absent and in disgrace.

Mickelson archly hinted at legal action but in my view he got it wrong.

He is a crowned head in a sport that prides itself on sportsmanship and gentlemanliness and at best he is guilty of cheapening the image of the game. Golfers, especially professional ones, do not slip through loopholes.

Hopefully the whole distasteful mess will be resolved without too much rancour and that the whistle-blower, McCarron, won’t be castigated. He at least had the balls to say what the others were whispering.

For his part Mickelson needs to re-consider. He has not been “publicly slandered” as he so cutely put it – his actions were merely questioned as not being in keeping with the ethics of the game he claims to love.

Perhaps he should be asking himself: what would Jack, or Tom, have done?