re: USGA clarifies rule regarding Phil

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The USGA made their ruling on the assumption that he did not do it with the intention of improving his position

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Did they say this or is this your interpretation? That would be dumb of them to say, because it couldn't have been more clear what he was doing.

Rule 1-2 is very obviously and expressly a catch all for situations that aren't covered in another rule. Making a stroke on a moving ball is covered elsewhere. You'd have to violate 1-2 in order to apply 1-2.

Furthermore, the penalty for violation of rule 1-2 is a 2 stroke penalty. DQ can be considered and determined based on the situation, but it's not automatic. So to say they applied the wrong rule is incorrect, and to say they did that to avoid a DQ is also incorrect.

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Our Rules Committee mobilized quickly and unanimously decided this situation is specifically and explicitly covered under Rule 14-5," Bodenhamer said. "To go to Rule 1-2 — Phil didn't purposely deflect or stop the ball, which is talked about in the reference under Rule 14-5, if you look at it. (Rule) 14-5 explicitly covers a player making a stroke at a moving ball, and so we operated under that rule." Afterward on the Fox broadcast, Mickelson acknowledged that he struck the ball with the intent of stopping it from rolling off the green, and receiving a two-shot penalty. "I would gladly take the two shots over continuing that display," he said. On the Fox broadcast, David Fay, the top man at the USGA before retiring in 2010, said that after hearing Mickelson's remarks after the round, Fay would take a different view than the USGA committee that assessed the two-shot penalty. "I probably would’ve lost, but I would’ve lobbied for disqualification," Fay said. Rule 1-2's disqualification clause reads: "In the case of a serious breach of Rule 1-2, the Committee may impose a penalty of disqualification." The Committee could have ruled that Mickelson stopping his ball on the green allowed him "a significant advantage."

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So here is the ex head of the USGA saying he would have voted to DQ Mickelson.
I guess that totally destroys the narrative here that only people who are dumb and don't understand the rules are saying Phil could have been DQ'd?
It's obvious that," intention" was taken into consideration.

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1) He is no longer in the hea doosition, so the actual pressure to DQ Phil isn’t there. He has no clue what he really would’ve done in the moment. My guess is he wouldn’t have done shite. 2) He is making these comments the next day not in real time. Again, he wouldn’t have done shite.

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Nothing you posted proves that the USGA didn't take into consideration Phil's intent or who he is when making their decision.
There are people on here that are insisting that the USGA purely made their decision by the letter of the rule only, and this was clearly not the case.
The truth is, I like Phil and I'm not a stickler to the rules. What I take exception to, is people's claim that anyone with a different opinion than theirs is somehow dumb or uninformed.