Sometimes it's best to go back to the tee...

[Chris Johnston]

Wow

[JC Jones]

If you're a quitter

You can't be a hero going back to the tee!!

[noonan]

Screw being a hero - gimme the trophy

[Matt Kardash]

Going back to the tee means he would have made at BEST a 5, with a 50% chance at making a 6. So in the end I don't think what he did really changed anything score-wise.

[Mark Pearce]

Going back to the tee means he would have made at BEST a 5, with a 50% chance at making a 6. So in the end I don't think what he did really changed anything score-wise.

No way is Phil's average for that hole 3.5. 

[Adam Clayman]

IMO, he should've gone in there like the IMF in the Amazon basin. Taking his stance, trampling those stupid bamboo trees.

[Matt Kardash]

Going back to the tee means he would have made at BEST a 5, with a 50% chance at making a 6. So in the end I don't think what he did really changed anything score-wise.

No way is Phil's average for that hole 3.5.  

That pin location ia brutal! I'm sure the scoring average is at least 3.3 in that location, if not more. Also, add to the fact that he is re-teeing (which adds extra stress) and I don't think it is unfair to say that he had a 50% chance at making a 6 from the tee. Either way, best case scenario he makes a 5, which is only one shot better.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Going back to the tee, after hitting that horrendous tee shot, and having to attempt it again, with that difficult hole location, may have produced a higher score.

[Melvyn Morrow]

It’s just like getting out of a pot bunker via exiting the rear; the best way forward is to sometimes reassess the current plan, if it’s not working. To tactically retreat is no disgrace, usually it’s the best option for a wise golfer.

It shows the quality between a golfer and a player. The golfer is always ready to adjust his game, to recalculate prior to moving on. A player will keep banging his head against a brick wall believing that pure ignorant force will win out in the end. No wonder players tend to have that vacant look, you know the look that says the lights are on but no one is in. 

Of course it’s sensible to be flexible even if that entails going back to the TEE, its tactical and it may still give the opportunity or at least the a chance to win. The additional bonus is watching a player frustrate himself instead of thinking through his game as it sometimes takes two or three Holes before he regains his composure.

An old Scottish sage one said ‘A wise man with two balls can still be fertile by placing his shots in the right direction ready for the final approach’.

Melvyn   

[Jim Nugent]

That pin location ia brutal! I'm sure the scoring average is at least 3.3 in that location, if not more. Also, add to the fact that he is re-teeing (which adds extra stress) and I don't think it is unfair to say that he had a 50% chance at making a 6 from the tee. Either way, best case scenario he makes a 5, which is only one shot better.

While I agree with your overall point, best case (though real unlikely) scenario is he makes 3.  He had a slim chance of making 4.   

[Garland Bayley]

IMO, he should've gone in there like the IMF in the Amazon basin. Taking his stance, trampling those stupid bamboo trees.

There are bamboo trees in the Amazon basin?

[Michael Tamburrini]

He should definitely have gone back to the tee. If his first attempt had ricocheted into a completely unplayable lie (which it nearly did - not to mention the ball almost hitting him), he'd have had nowhere to drop and no other options. That was how Kevin Na took his 25 or whatever it was last year.

He could have taken a lot more than 6, but was never going to do better than a 4 .

[Ulrich Mayring]

He'd make at least 5 off the tee with a chance for 4. He knows what club to hit off the tee now as well.

So in order to justify his hacking in the weeds with the additional risk that entails he would have to have a good chance to make 4. That means getting it on or near the green with his first attempt. There was zero chance of that and consequently he didn't even try to do that, all he tried was somehow hacking it out. So he was already thinking "5" - therefore, huge mistake. I blame the caddie, he must step in at this point and ask Phil: "Are you going to get this on the green and two-putt? If not, why take the risk? Let's go back to the tee."

Ulrich

[John Shimp]

His second right hand shot was very poor.  He was real close to scraping a 5 there.  In the end he missed too many really nice looks with the putter and didnt hit any real stellar approaches on the back other than saves like 18.  The magic wasnt there this time.

[Rich Goodale]

I'm with Ulrich.  Phil was lucky to get out of that bamboo (or whatever) in 2.  So he's lying three on hard pan with an almost impossible shot to get the ball on the green in 4, then hits a great shot from the bunker he inevitably landed in to end up with a 6.  Go back to the tee and do you think he can do any worse than being on that hardpan in 3?  More importantly, he could have been in that bamboo for longer than he actually was and ended up with a snowman or worse.  As it was, it was a great 6 after his brain fart when he decided to not go (or didn't even think of going) back to the tee.  He was lucky to finish 3rd, and showed why he's got only what 4-5 majors?  With his talent he should have closer to 10.  Mens insana in sano corpore......

[John Shimp]

We are talking about Phil here.  He is not going to the tee unless he is lost/ob.  He stll could have gotten to -10.  Needed more magic.

[Rich Goodale]

Yes, John, Phil coulda been anything....

....but he is Phil.....

Mens insana in sano corpore.

[George Pazin]

Went back to the tee at the 10th on Thursday. Triple bogey. He was pretty much screwed regardless. He just needed a little more magic on the other holes, and as someone pointed out, it just wasn't there yesterday. While others criticise, I say well done, finishing T3 with 2 triples. The line between success and failure in pro sports is incredibly fine.

[Tony_Muldoon]

In the interview with the BBC guy he explained that there was no room to take an unplayable.  I don't think he even considered the walk of shame.

In the replies above no one posted that going back was his only hope of a 4.   it was sadly ugly, like seeing a friend do it when you know whats going to happen.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Brian,

Van de Velde's meltdown occured on the last hole of the tournament, and he only needed a double bogey to win.

It was bad decision making at the highest level, horrendous.
He had completely missed the previous shot with a driver, teed up to produce the perfect lie.
A lay up, pitch to the green produces bogey and he wins by two shots.
Even with a three putt, he wins.

The worst decision on a final hole ...............ever.

Phil's dilema occured early in the final round.

And, given two choices, it's easy to second guess when you know the outcome of one of those choices.

[Bill_McBride]

Going back to the tee means he would have made at BEST a 5, with a 50% chance at making a 6. So in the end I don't think what he did really changed anything score-wise.

No way is Phil's average for that hole 3.5. 

Back tee at 225 to that pin?   He probably makes 5 but no guarantees....

[Doug Siebert]

I was pretty shocked at how badly Phil hit those two right handed shots.  As someone who is in similar situations more often than most (certainly more often than Mickelson is) I can speak with some experience.  His initial location didn't look too terrible, though it looks like he tried to do too much with it - rather than trying to put it into the bunker, for the likely 4 and no worse than 5, he swung so hard I'm pretty sure he was likely trying to skip it through the bunker and onto the green.  He'd still have a likely 4 and no worse than a 5 if he did that, but if he skipped over the green depending on where it ends up he might have brought 6 into play.  No way he gets 6 if he's in the bunker in two, so playing to end up IN that bunker rather than skipping thru it should have been his decision.

He should have only tried to hit that ball hard trying to go through the bunker if he was sure of his ability to play a right handed shot with flipped club.  Based on that crappy first shot, and how terrible his next shot was (with a decent lie and no interference from trees/etc!). it looks like Phil is terrible at that shot.  Terrible as in, I'm better playing that shot lefty than Lefty is playing it righty, even though my only practice at is when I use it on the course maybe a half dozen times a year.  How terrible he is at it was certainly surprising to me.  If Moe Norman couldn't do it I wouldn't have been surprised, seeing as how he was probably never in a situation where he couldn't take a righty swing in his life

I strongly disagree with those who think he should have gone back to the tee.  That ball wasn't unplayable, it takes very little force to bump it out into the bunker as he should have, and his average score from the bunker in two is certainly well below his average score playing three from the tee.  He just made a bad swing at it because he was trying to hit it too hard to do too much to it, and is rather pathetic at hitting that righty shot at all as demonstrated by his ugly third shot.

BTW, if you want to play that shot, it is WRISTS ONLY.  If you start using your arms/shoulders or shifting weight who the hell knows what happens.  If you use only your wrists you can't miss it, and can still get ~50 yards out of it in situations where you have an unimpeded backswing.

[Colin Macqueen]

David,

You say "He was real close to scraping a 5 there."
Interesting that you use the word scraping as I felt that Leftie's second "shot" to escape the bamboo was much closer to a "scrape" rather than a stroke that I have ever seen in tournament golf. The golf stroke has to have an element of swing to it by the rules/decisions does it not? I thought Phil's "stroke" was borderline to say the least.

Cheers Colin

[Phil McDade]

So Mickelson talked after his round about how he made the right play (he argued left of that pin, even in the bunker, is better than other spots of the green), but got an unlucky break.

Watching the replay on the Masters website (which, by the way, might be the singularly best sporting website I've ever seen), does anything but vanity prevent Mickelson from playing short of the green -- ala Billy Casper at the 1959 US Open at Winged Foot -- and pitching up for an easy bogey/not-that-difficult par (given his short game)? I'm staring at the screen of his tap-in for his triple, and a shot short of that green leaves him an uphill pitch to an open greenfront that runs uphill all the way to the hole -- the kind of stuff he executes in his sleep (and far easier, it seems, than his truly ballsy flop shot from behind the green on 15 on Saturday that led to a birdie.)

Those stands at the left of that green really hug that bunker. Surely Mickelson is enough of a student and historian of the game to realize hitting it into the stands is sometimes not a bargain (ala Van de Velde at the '99 Open Championship). In fact, Van de Velde is who comes to mind with this shot. When interviewed after his disaster at Carnoustie, he essentially said, "What do you want me to do -- hit 7-iron/7-iron/7-iron to win the Open?"

Sure, the 4th played hard -- but it had a 2:1 ratio of pars/birdies to bogeys/others on Sunday. I guess he's still not one to play the odds and play it safely.

[Patrick_Mucci]

Phil,

You make an excellent point that I hadn't considered.

The "Casper" strategy.

With a short game of Phil's quality, that's a viable option.

My only concern would be, how wet was the area fronting # 4 green, and would he get relief for an embedded ball.