This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

This blog headline relates to the continuing kerfuffle (don’t you like that word, which sort of rolls of the tongue?) between pro golfer Phil Mickelson and a writer of his biography, Alan Shipnuck.

The kerfuffle (there’s that word again) revolves around the definition of a term, “off-the-record.”

I happen to know what the phrase means

This is so because of:  (a) my past work as a daily newspaper reporter, and (b) my role in Oregon state government as a manager assigned to deal with the media.  [In my 25 years as a lobbyist, I also dealt frequently with “off-the-record” issues.]

The phrase means this:

Both sides must agree in advance to go “off-the-record.”  The interviewer and the person being interviewed must reach that agreement and it must be well understood by both sides before anyone says anything or writes anything.  Off-the-record means that a source will not be quoted.

In the case of a source for a story, an individual cannot contend  “off-the-record” is in force just because he or she didn’t like how he or she was quoted.

And, on the other side – the writer – cannot just violate an “off-the-record” agreement because it suits himself or herself to do so.

If a writer does so, he won’t be a good, reputable writer for long.

When I have dealt with “off-the-record” issues over the years – and there have been many such cases on both sides of the issue – I always had an IRON-CLAD GUARANTEE before saying anything or reporting anything.  I also had to trust that the other side would live up to its commitments.

Further, regarding Mickelson, who used to be one of my favorite pro golfers, I have said before that I had hoped he would work within the PGA Tour to effect change.  He could have done so given his long-earned status on the Tour.

Instead, he went to LIV golf, which is funded by the tainted Saudi Defense Fund. 

I wish Mickelson wouldn’t have left a pro golf tour that had done so much for him, including providing him a world-class competitive golf stage. 

So, what happened in the case of the Mickelson and Shipnuck kerfuffle?

We’ll never know because we weren’t there.  But, it has been interesting to note how Mickelson has described the situation.  He has never said something like – “I had an advance, iron-clad agreement with the reporter that what I was saying was off-the-record, and then he violated that agreement.”

An interesting, if not telling, omission.