It was a jaw dropping moment. This time yesterday Phil Mickelson’s biographer Alan Shipnuck released some contents from Billy Walters’ new book Gambler. From one of two chapters about Phil.

It is an obscene amount of money. Walters discloses that Mickelson’s gambling losses were nearer $100 million and over his 30 year career he has bet nearly $1 billion.

More shockingly, during the 2012 Ryder Cup matches he called Billy Walters and said he wanted to lay $400,000 on the United States team, in which he was playing, winning the cup.

Walters, who was Mickelson’s gambling partner and friend from 2008-2013, knew more about the exact amount of money which was involved because they worked in tandem. Walters was so well known in betting circles he had to shadow Mickelson’s gambling patterns so that people assumed that it was him. Mickelson had offshore accounts from which he was betting millions of dollars. In 2011 he placed 3,154 bets and lost $143,000.

It was common for him to bet $100-$200,000 on football, basketball and baseball. For 1,115 times he bet £110,000 to win $100,000 back. On 858 occasions $220,000 to win $200,000 back. The peak of this compulsion seemed to be in 2011 when he was betting nine times a day.

To this Mickelson said today” I have been very open about my gambling addiction. I have previously conveyed my remorse, took responsibility, have gotten help, have been fully committed to therapy..”

Yes, but until Alan Shipnuck’s biography the full extent of this addiction was not made public. And if the Saudi Public Investment Fund had not offered him vast riches to disrupt the professional game, he would still be mired in that debt. He keeps on saying that he is “really happy” but perhaps that is because the hundreds of millions the Saudis paid him to join LIV have now balanced the books and he is now back into the black.

But the most significant issue released so far was his behaviour during the 2012 Ryder Cup matches at Medinah. He and Keegan Bradley had a winning partnership but chose not to play in the afternoon four balls.

Walters discloses that Mickelson called him then and said that he wanted to bet $400,000 on the United States winning the match. Walters said to him:

“Are you fucking mad? People think of you as the new Arnold Palmer. You’d be willing to risk all of that for this bet?”

Mickelson responded “Alright, alright”

He pointed out to him that the Manager of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team Pete Rose, who had been all time scorer and a Baseball Hall of Fame member, was discovered to be laying bets on his teams matches . He was disqualified from the sport for life and kicked out of the Hall of Fame.

Walters doesn’t know if Mickelson placed the bet elsewhere and today Phil has issued a statement that he did not

“I never bet on the Ryder Cup…I would never undermine the integrity of the game’

So he has denied placing the bet. But the book shows that in the phone call he intended to do so. He had the intention, but supposedly got talked out of it.

However, the co-author of the book Armen Keteyian, emmy award winning Chief Investigative reporter for CBS news, found two people, a high ranking golf industry executive and a top poker player friend of Walters who were both told about the bet. The executive recalls that Walters said to him:

“You’re not going to believe what this dumb motherfucker wants me to do. He wants me to bet four hundred thousand on the USA to win. Not on his individual match or anything but the team to win.”

Rory McIlroy gave his reaction today. “Well at least he’ll be able to bet on the Ryder Cup this year, because he won’t be in it”

If the bet had been placed that would have altered tactics and added pressure. It is the intention that matters here.

Not surprisingly, his supporters were as loyal as those of the 45th President of the United States, blindly loyal. “We love you Phil” “I’m Phil’s best friend” and all of that. People do not want to believe that he would ever do anything wrong. He is squeaky clean Mr Thumbs Up. Except he is not.

The next extract from Billy Walters’ book explains a little more about their friendship and the insider dealing trial that led to Walters being sent to prison for five years and being fined $10 million.

” A number of people in the media, on Twitter and in the golf world have suggested that Phil ratted me out on insider trading charges. That is not what happened.

What happened was much worse.

Phil Mickelson, one of the most famous people in the world and a man I once considered a friend, refused to tell a simple truth that he shared with the FBI and could have kept me out of prison.

I never told him that I had inside information about stocks and he knows it. All Phil had to do was publicly say it and he refused.

The outcome cost me my freedom, tens of millions of dollars and a heartbreak I still struggle with daily. While I was in prison my daughter committed suicide. I still believe I could have saved her if I’d been on the outside.

The book explores how Phil finagled his way out of not one but two cases that ended in criminal convictions. As the book makes clear

Phil is not always the person he seems to be.

On August 23rd, when the book is published we will know more.

So what can be reflected on about this? It seems that both Phil and Tiger have had a multitude of chaos going on in their lives and yet were still able to perform at the very highest level. Perhaps the golf course became a place of safety for them. We know that Mickelson is addicted to risk and adrenaline. Shipnuck describes Phil placing bets inside an armour plated, bullet proof SUB car because he was dealing with some very shady characters in the Russian mafia and Las Vegas underworld.

Some of the golf media have commented that this addiction is a “real illness, a real sickness and very serious”.

Indeed. I wonder whether some of the addictive behaviour from both Mickelson and Tiger could stem from side effects from their extended use of pain killing prescription medication. I will never forget watching the TV series Dopesick and seeing the devastation that addiction to Fentanyl causes. Both Mickelson, with his arthritis, and Woods with his back surgeries have been on very strong medication for some time.

There is a difference between Woods and Mickelson though. When Tiger went through his fall from grace, his mother and children were there to support him when he made a public apology. Mickelson has never publicly apologised in this way, in person. He just writes on social media.

What I and others have noticed is that Phil’s family have been no where to be seen, not since before he unexpectedly won the PGA Championship. And that is bewildering for a man who was so in your face with his family man image. He says he couldn’t be happier. And yet he cuts a figure who is alone, apart from having his brother on the bag. Perhaps he is just happy because he has wreaked havoc and got revenge on the golf establishment and upset the status quo. As well as putting his bank account back into the black.

“He looks great” observed one commentator of his significant weight loss. Really? He looked terrible last year with the stress, and he looks worse this year. Way too thin and looking older than he ever has.

Shipnuck observes that the most damaging part of all this is that it shows up how Phil is as a person, but he says that he will survive it all. He always does. And the bottom line is that all of this publicity is giving Phil the attention he craves. Which is why we always have at least one controversy a year.