Phil Mickelson Once Bet On A Golfer To Miss The Cut After Losing Money To Him During A Practice Round

On today's Pardon My Take... BOB HARIG! The Sports Illustrated golf writer joined Mr. Cat and Mr. Commenter from the US Open to discuss all angles of this year's tournament, how the LIV golfers will affect the dynamic of the event, and we even heard some cool stories from Harig's new book, "Tiger & Phil: Golf's Most Fascinating Rivalry."

One of the stories that Harig told involves Phil Mickelson making a bet at the British Open a number of years back with a former practice round partner. I'll let Harig explain the details, but this is a very interesting story:

Mr. Commenter: I have one last question, because you mentioned some of the gambling that takes place during practice rounds. You don't have to name names, or if you want to name names, that's fine, too. Have you heard of a player in a major tournament, or I guess in an actual tournament, that's betting against their playing partner, you know, during the third/fourth round?

Bob Harig: I've never heard anything like that, and that would be highly illegal, frankly. You know, like, they're not supposed to bet on the competition, it's more about their own practice round gambling. I do have a story, though, that's in there, too [his book], that's about Phil that's kind of funny. It goes way back at a British Open, him and a guy named John Huston. John Huston's probably 60 now, playing Champions Tour Golf, but John Huston won seven or eight times on tour, was known as a birdie machine, and him and Phil teamed up a lot. They were practice round bandits on Tuesdays, they took a lot of cash off the guys. 

Bob Harig: Well, one year they're at the British Open, for whatever reason they were on the opposite sides, and Huston played great and really blitzed Phil. You know, he played phenomenally in a practice round leading up to the British Open, and Phil thought to himself, "You know, there's no way he can keep that going. No chance." So, he went into a legal booking shop in Scotland and placed money on Huston to miss the cut, which he did. And then Phil relished telling Huston that, "I bet on you to miss the cut." And to this day, because I interviewed John Huston for the book, he said, "Man, that hurt. You know, it's bad enough that he bet against me, but then he rubs it in, and he said, "To this day, he'll rub it in." So, that's an example of betting against somebody, right. But it wasn't, to my knowledge, in the tournament itself, like he went and did that away from the event.

We have heard that one of the reasons that Phil Mickelson joined the LIV Tour was to earn a lot more money needed due to his gambling debts, but there wouldn't be any money lost from this specific example. Because by betting against John Huston at the British Open that year, Phil Mickelson was a winner. Does he have a run it him at this year's US Open? We shall see.