Tyrrell Hatton was understandably upset when he bogeyed the 72nd hole at the WGC-Mexico Championship earlier this month to finish one shot out of a playoff with Phil Mickelson and Justin Thomas. Turns out, the Englishman was already running a bit hot from something that happened a few holes earlier.
On Tuesday, Hatton joined Andrew Coltart and Josh Antmann on Tuesday’s Sky Sports Golf Podcast and discussed how his group had been put on the clock by a US PGA Tour rules official a few holes earlier. Well, most of his group. According to Hatton, both he and Shubhankar Sharma were told they would be timed, but instead of Mickelson being on the clock, he was let off the hook.
“Sharma wasn’t that slow, to be honest. He was fine. 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.
“I’d just birdied 14 to tie with Phil and, you know, you’ve got four holes to go and it’s kind of crunch time. We had all hit good tee shots up 15 when one of the officials charged over and said, ‘Phil, you’re exempt but Tyrrell and Sharma, I’m going to start timing you.’
“Phil goes, ‘Oh, he obviously likes me.’ I was raging.”
Mickelson, of course, went on to victory, snapping a long drought. It should also be noted, however, that the ruling didn’t hurt Hatton too much. He eagled the 15th hole to grab a share of the lead.
Hatton was happy to share his candid comments on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/TyrrellHatton/status/973889633095471104
This is the second time a European player hinted at preferential treatment for certain players at the WGC-Mexico Championship. Francesco Molinari went on a Twitter rant after he felt he was unfairly targeted for slow play as well.
(h/t Bunkered and GeoffShackelford.com)
