Phil On The Difference Between A USGA And R&A Setup

While we gradually wrap our heads around a historic Open Championship and I slowly collect some good reads, I didn't want to let Phil Mickelson's comments about the Royal Troon setup pass by without a little copy and pasting for future reference.

This was at the tale end of his post-65 final round press conference at Troon.

Q. For those who don't follow golf as closely as others might, can you explain the difference between how the USGA sets up a course for the U.S. Open and how the R&A sets up a course for the British Open? And do you prefer one over the other?

PHIL MICKELSON: I think that R&A sets the golf course up to be as fair as possible and to try to kind of identify who the best player is regardless of what the score is given the conditions and so forth. Sometimes it's 20-under. Sometimes people don't want that many under par. But the fact is if somebody plays some incredible golf, that's what it should do. You shouldn't have to mess with the course too much to try to control the score.

The USGA has it in their mind that the score needs to be par, so no matter what lines they have to cross to get there, that's got to be the standard, and it kind of disregards and doesn't take into account the difference in talent level and abilities that the players of today now have.

Q. Prefer one over the other?

PHIL MICKELSON: I prefer this one, yeah. I think that it's much more fair. I think we all enjoy it. But I'm also biased because I've won this one and I haven't won the other one, so I've got that working against me.

I wrote about Troon and the R&A's performance for the week in Golf World.