TRENDING: Phil Mickleson Slams USGA Over U.S. Open Setups

The USGA has been in a lot of hot water thanks to its enforcement of new rules this year, drawing the ire of many PGA TOUR members. Now, criticism is getting louder heading into the U.S. Open next week.

Phil Mickelson is leading the charge this time when criticizing the USGA, claiming that unless it rains, the USGA is bound to screw up the setup of the major championship at Pebble Beach. Mickelson is so convinced that the rain will bring better results to the tournament that he even did a rain dance on social media to bring storms this week. The reason being that Lefty believes rain is the only governor of the USGA.

Mickelson went into depth talking about this point after his second round at The Memorial. “I’ve played, what, 29 U.S. Opens. One hundred percent of time they have messed it up if it doesn’t rain. The rain is the governor,” Mickelson said. “That’s the only governor they have. And if they don’t have a governor they don’t know how to control themselves. Rain is the governor. If it doesn’t rain, a hundred percent of the time it will be messed up.”

Phil Mickelson takes a club from his bag on the fourth hole during…

Phil Mickelson takes a club from his bag on the fourth hole during the second round of The Memorial Tournament Presented by Nationwide at Muirfield Village Golf Club on May 31, 2019 in Dublin, Ohio. Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

Adding on to this point, Mickelson stated that there are multiple things that the USGA has in place to make the competition better when the rain comes. For example, he stated that the new rules better equip the USGA to fix ball marks and other issues on the greens after rainstorms. And in Phil’s opinion, that makes for much more even competition.

If that is truly the case, Phil will be bummed to learn that the weather forecast at Pebble Beach is not predicting any rain for next week. In fact, the weather is supposed to be beautiful for the U.S. Open, only partly cloudy or sunshine for the whole weekend. The chance of precipitation is only 10% at best for the entire tournament.

So unless Phil is some kind of god and his rain dance brings storms unexpectedly, the course won’t be altered under the new rules. Regardless, the event should be exciting and many will be tuning in to see who will win the third major of the season.

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