It took less than an hour after Europe retained the Ryder Cup 16.5-11.5 for fingers to start pointing blame for the United States loss. The first finger belonged to Phil Mickelson. It was pointed directly at U.S. Captain Tom Watson.
All 12 U.S. Ryder Cup team members along with Captain Tom Watson sat at the dais for the post tournament press conference. This is the setting Mickelson chose to heave a verbal grenade at his captain.
Having already rehearsed his denunciation of Watson in an earlier interview with the Golf Channel’s Steve Sands, Phil jumped at the chance to answer a reporter’s question referencing the U.S. win in 2008:
“There were two things that allow us to play our best I think that Paul Azinger did, and one was he got everybody invested in the process. He got everybody invested in who they were going to play with, who the picks were going to be, who was going to be in their pod, who — when they would play, and they had a great leader for each pod.”
“And the other thing that Paul did really well was he had a great game plan for us, you know, how we were going to go about doing this. How we were going to go about playing together; golf ball, format, what we were going to do, if so-and-so is playing well, if so-and-so is not playing well, we had a real game plan.
“Those two things helped us bring out our best golf. And I think that, you know, we all do the best that we can and we’re all trying our hardest, and I’m just looking back at what gave us the most success. Because we use that same process in The Presidents Cup and we do really well. Unfortunately, we have strayed from a winning formula in 2008 for the last three Ryder Cups, and we need to consider maybe getting back to that formula that helped us play our best.”
After displaying surprise at how that might be taken as criticism of the captain sitting to his left, Phil was asked a follow up question about whether a winning formula was replicated this week:
“Uh (pausing) no. No, nobody here was in any decision. So, no.”
Watson looked straight ahead during Lefty’s diatribe. When asked for his response, Tom took the high road:
“Phil has a difference of opinion. That’s okay. My management philosophy is different than his.”
You can read the full transcript of the press conference here, including a diplomatic response from Jim Furyk when the English press tried to drag him into the mix.
Two very separate issues arise from these events, what he said and when he said it. Mickelson has been (and should be) universally blasted for the timing of his comments. He’s getting a tremendous amount of slack in the press from those who agree with WHAT he said.
Monday was a travel day for those involved and many who will analyze and comment on the situation, so stay tuned. The best of this may be yet to come.
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