Tyrell Hatton is Claiming that Phil Mickelson Gets Special Treatment

Phil Mickelson was able to capture his first PGA TOUR victory in years last week at the WGC-Mexico Championship. However, one golfer isn’t happy with how Phil got the victory.

Tyrell Hatton came up just one stroke short of joining a playoff with Lefty and Justin Thomas at the WGC-Mexico after bogeying on the final hole of his tournament. It was a great day for Hatton overall, as he and Phil were duking it out all day in the same group but he did take some issue with how Mickelson was treated during their round.

British golfer Tyrrell Hatton plays his shot at tee 17, during the…

British golfer Tyrrell Hatton plays his shot at tee 17, during the third round of the World Golf Championship in Mexico City, on March 3, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / Alfredo ESTRELLA Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

According to Hatton, there was an issue that was brought up by rules officials on the 14th hole. Hatton had just tied Phil with a birdie but rules officials took him and the third member of the group, Shubhankar Sharma, aside and told them that they would now be on the clock by rules officials. But Mickelson was exempt from the timing.

https://twitter.com/TyrrellHatton/status/973889633095471104

This got Hatton a little bit hot because he felt that Mickelson was the player that was really slowing down their group. “Sharma wasn’t that slow, to be honest. He was fine,” said Hatton, “But I feel like Phil was taking quite a lot of time on certain things. We’d had a warning earlier on in the round to speed up and we kind of did but not massively.”

This isn’t the first time this season that an European player has complained about being targeted for slow pace. Francesco Molinari went on a Twitter tirade describing a similar situation that happened to him while in a tournament and he was told that he was going to be put on the clock. So this doesn’t seem to be an isolated incident.

This is certainly an issue that needs to keep monitored, especially since it could have affected the outcome of an event. Hopefully, there isn’t any targeting going on among certain players and this will be solved in time.

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