Phil Mickelson mum on PGA Championship’s dark, strange finish

Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler took the high road after officials had Rory McIlroy and Bernd Weisberger play into their twosome on the final hole of the PGA Championship, but Frank Nobilo and Notah Begay, among others, would have scripted things differently.

“It was generous of Rickie and Phil to call them up [on 18],” Nobilo -- the Golf Channel analyst -- said Sunday night after McIlroy beat Mickelson by one stroke and Fowler and Henrik Stenson by two at Valhalla.

“I don’t know if I would have done that,” he said. “I would have said, ‘No way, you can wait. This is the PGA Championship, you can wait and let us finish the hole out.’”

Begay voiced similar concerns following McIlroy’s one-shot win over Mickelson.

“You would like to see things play themselves out in proper sequence,” said Begay, now a Golf Channel analyst and a former PGA Tour player. “And that was certainly not the case today.”

It was surely an unprecedented close to a week that began with the surreal spectacle of Tiger Woods being mobbed by the media in the parking lot when he arrived for a practice round on Wednesday. In case you missed the most dramatic final round of any of the four men’s majors of the season, darkness was falling fast over the rain-delayed finale as Mickelson and Fowler were walking up the 18th fairway to their balls.

Weisberger and McIlroy, who was up by two when he reached the 18th, teed off, at which point a PGA of America official hustled up to the twosome in front and asked permission for the last two golfers to play up with them. There appeared to be some misunderstanding, as Phil believed the duo would hit their drives while McIlroy understood they would all play in as a foursome.

Despite McIlroy’s lead, the outcome was far from certain, especially when the frontrunner, not surprisingly in a hurry to “get this over and done with,” as he told reporters afterward, nearly lost his drive into the water. His ball hung up in the soggy grass about a yard from the hazard line.

Twitter, of course, went bonkers, though Mickelson, who did not look happy as the situation unfolded, said he was cool with how things went down:

“It’s not a big deal either way,” Mickelson said in defense of the decision. “They had a chance to finish it was no big deal.”

Fowler was surprised with how things played out, but he essentially concurred with the PGA’s determination.

“We were cool with hitting the tee shot. We weren’t expecting the approach shots,” said Fowler, adding that finishing in a tie for third with Henrik Stenson (14-under) stung. “Typically if it’s getting dark and they are going to blow the horn, you at least get the guys off the tee and it gives them the opportunity to play. We weren’t expecting the approach shots, so however you look at it, it is what it is.”

McIlroy, for his part, thanked Mickelson and Fowler for their graciousness.

“They could have just left us on the tee box there and just play normally,” he said. “They showed a lot of class and a lot of sportsmanship by doing that.”