Ten Ryder Cups and five majors but will Phil Mickelson ever be captain? With a record like that, nobody gets overlooked normally but I understand the mood among PGA of America officials was undiluted fury after his public questioning of Tom Watson’s stewardship on Sunday night.
Rightly so.
The mind went back to the 2008 Ryder Cup and Sir Nick Faldo’s weird stint as captain. When he came in for understandably hostile questioning at a press conference afterwards, Lee Westwood leapt to his defence.
This was the same Westwood dropped by Faldo from the Saturday afternoon session. He was on his way to equalling Arnold Palmer’s record of 12 matches unbeaten when he was told on the 10th tee that he would not play after lunch. You can imagine what he thought privately about that crass piece of timing.
Yet did Westwood use that as a stick to beat Faldo in public? Not in a million years.
Sadly, Mickelson’s ego could not cope with being dropped for two Saturday sessions. Yes, he should have played in the afternoon; yes it was one more daft thing Watson did.
Indeed, everything Mickelson said in the most dramatic press conference imaginable made sense but you cannot humiliate your captain in such a setting. It was a terrible act of betrayal.
It left Ted Bishop, the PGA of America president, with his head in his hands at the back of the room. He should have been leaping to his feet in defence of the man he chose to lead the team. Indeed, you kept waiting for one player or official to speak up and say this was not the time or forum to be conducting an inquest. None did.
It said much about what the players felt about a captain who was foisted upon them by Bishop and who was hopelessly out of touch. At 65, who would not be?
Mickelson was spot-on when he intimated the American display was a car crash you could see coming a mile off. How many times did you read in these pages in the lead-up to the event about how Watson seemed dogged by bad luck and bad judgment?
It started when he went against his own philosophy of picking in-form wildcards by choosing the hapless Webb Simpson over the impressive Chris Kirk.
The brilliant performance of Billy Horschel in the FedEx Cup, another on the outside looking in, was one more psychological blow in the build-up when America could not afford any.
Watson capped it by dropping Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed from Friday afternoon’s foursomes after their morning performance had electrified the USA. Ryder Cups are all about momentum and that killed it stone dead. There are some things the Americans must get right if they are to end their run of eight losses in 10 matches. For a start, the FedEx Cup should be used to identify the hot players going into a Ryder Cup.
They have also got to pick a Paul McGinley-esque captain in touch with his players and prepared to put in the hard graft to get the fine detail right.
Steve Stricker would be perfect but because he has not won a major and does not sell tickets when you are announcing wildcards with a Broadway-style production, he probably has no chance.
America have also been served wretchedly by their two star players, Mickelson and Tiger Woods. Contrast their approach with that of Rory McIlroy, who said on Sunday he was more pumped-up for the singles than he had been for the final round of his two major wins this year.
Emerging players such as Spieth and Reed actually get it but the Americans must pick the right captain and the PGA of America has to react to Mickelson’s mutiny. Start there and they will be on the right road to hosannas at Hazeltine in 2016.– Daily Mail