Fallout From Far and Wide on Phil’s Callout of Watson

The day after the 2014 Ryder Cup couldn’t be more different for the two teams. The European Team is most likely nursing the remnants of some heavy duty celebration. The Euros played exquisitely and deserve any and all tributes thrown their way.

The Americans on the other hand have to asking themselves a painfully familiar question: Why do we keep losing at the Ryder Cup? Team USA has lost in eight of the last ten matches and from the look of the current state of the “team” the answer isn’t within anyone’s grasp.

Phil Mickelson’s public and crude lambasting of Captain Tom Watson has put the American Team and The PGA of America into a most embarrassing situation.

As more details come to light it appears that Mickelson was not the only player that felt disenfranchised by Watson’s captaincy. 

But there is a time and a place for critiques and complaining and the Ryder Cup Press Conference isn’t the correct time or place for such an uncivilized display by men who are regarded as gentleman.

Now the United States Ryder Cup team, its captain, the PGA of America and the entire American Ryder Cup team and captain selection process has become a joke among many in the sport.

Karen Crouse in the New York Times noticed a distance between Watson and the team this week and tells us how uncomfortable the atmosphere was at the press conference. 

Watson, 65, had come across all week as estranged from his team, and as he joined his players for the final time, just how great the divide was became painfully clear. The airing of the team-room toxins started innocently enough, with a question posed to Mickelson, who had been on the last victorious American team, in 2008.

“So we were invested in the process,” Mickelson said, adding, “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.”

As Mickelson spoke, Watson stared ahead. The wan smile on his face did not reach his eyes. Hunter Mahan, seated next to Mickelson, looked at him out of the corner of his eye. At the other end of the table, Bubba Watson sat with his arms crossed on his chest. Other players stared at their cuticles or shifted in their seats.

Across the pond Mickelson is being called out for his public attack on his captain.

James Corrigan of The Telegraph details Phil’s attack and Watson’s defense and says the American team left Gleneagles in a shambles. 

Phil Mickelson launched a scathing attack on the captaincy of Tom Watson, the legend who had been entrusted with winning on away soil for the first time in 21 years.  

The left-hander wasted no time in taking apart Watson more emphatically than Europe had taken apart the US. Mickelson began the inquiry immediately in what the many fans of the 65-year-old, and plenty of others besides, will believe to be cruel and bitter fashion.  

The pair tried with little success to keep it dignified. On Saturday, Watson referenced Mickelson being tired and then made what can surely be seen as his own dig. Making the argument for the format being changed so every pro plays in each session, Watson said “Then everybody would know they are going to go 36 holes and then everybody knows that they have to be in shape to play.”

Yes, the US had arrived in Perthshire claiming to be united and had left a rabble, blighted by disagreement, disaffection and, some will feel, disrespect. And all the while, the Europeans were celebrating their 16 1/2 – 11 1/2 win, their largest in eight years.

Andy Bull gives Phil credit for not backstabbing Watson and paints an unflattering but accurate picture of Phil’s delivery. 

Well, no one can accuse Phil Mickelson of knifing Tom Watson in the back. He delivered his stiletto verdict on Watson’s captaincy from front on and in full earshot, while the two of them were sitting six feet apart at the top table in the end-of-tournament press conference. And, being the well-mannered man he is, he did it with a grin, and a charming but utterly insincere insistence that he “really couldn’t understand” why anyone would think he was attacking Watson’s leadership. As for Watson he just had to sit there and listen with a watery grin while Mickelson tore his captaincy into tiny pieces.

And finally Paul Hayward says that’s Phil’s rant shows the difference between the European and American teams.  

Mickelson’s disloyalty in comparing Watson’s ineffective captaincy to Paul Azinger’s stewardship in 2008 here in a packed press conference chamber – rather than the team room, where the grudge might have been aired – was symbolic of the difference between the protagonists.

On the one side: Europe, committed, disciplined, impassioned, blood-brotherly. On the other: USA, fragile, ambivalent, unstructured and willing to knife the captain in front of a bank of cameras. As Mickelson argued for Azinger’s “pod” system and constant dialogue with the players the rookies on Watson’s team looked stunned. Old Jim Furyk’s face darkened into thunder. After another demoralizing defeat, Mickelson had sent a damaging news story spinning round the world; one which every American player will have to deal with when they would rather be pulling the duvet over their head.

From every perspective Mickelson’s public dressing down of Watson has had a negative effect towards Phil and the entire American Ryder Cup system.

Maybe all of Phil’s points are valid and an Azinger Approach is needed for the Americans to succeed but the way it was done was low class and we have come to expect so much more than that from Phil.