You knew near the end of NBC's telecast when Phil Mickelson mentioned Paul Azinger's name in his post Ryder Cup interview that we might be headed for an entertaining post-Ryder Cup debate over the merits of Tom Watson's work.
If it was only that quaint!
Before we get to the analysis, let's go to the tape, with the transcript highlights first. I don't want anyone who missed this reading without context!
First note that Mickelson was responding to a question and not bringing this up on his own. Of course, there was so much detail!
Q. Anyone that was on the team at Valhalla, can you put your finger on what worked in 2008 and what hasn't worked since?
PHIL MICKELSON: 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.
In my case, we had Ray Floyd, and we hung out together and we were all invested in each other's play. We were invested in picking Hunter that week; Anthony Kim and myself and Justin were in a pod, and we were involved on having Hunter be our guy to fill our pod. So we were invested in the process. 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.
Q. That felt like a pretty brutal destruction of the leadership that's gone on this week.
PHIL MICKELSON: Oh, I'm sorry you're taking it that way. I'm just talking about what Paul Azinger did to help us play our best. It's certainly -- I don't understand why you would take it that way. You asked me what I thought we should do going toward to bring our best golf out and I go back to when we played our best golf and try to replicate that formula.
Q. That didn't happen this week?
PHIL MICKELSON: Uh (pausing) no. No, nobody here was in any decision. So, no.
Far more damning for Watson than any debate over pods or picks or Paul is the idea that he limited his communications. This is a pro-bono week for the players while everyone else makes a lot of money off their backs. A great leader at least pretends to hear what these players are thinking because (A) they are here on their own time and (B) common sense dictates it. If Watson failed as miserably as Mickelson implies, then he probably is in for criticism.
Now for the Captain's reply.
Q. Can you tell us what you think of what Phil said about Paul Azinger?
TOM WATSON: I had a different philosophy as far as being a captain of this team. You know, it takes 12 players to win. It's not pods. It's 12 players. And I felt -- I based my decisions on -- yes, I did talk to the players, but my vice captains were very instrumental in making decisions as to whom to pair with. I had a different philosophy than Paul. I decided not to go that way. But I did have most of them play in the practise rounds together who played most of the time in the matches. I think that was the proper thing to do. Yes, I did mix-and-match a little bit from there, but again, you have to go with the evolution of the playing of the match and see who is playing the best and who to play with whom, and that's what I did.
Indeed you did! Loved this suggestion that the players weren't in shape. Also note that he says he consulted his players but mostly his vice captains.
Q. Every two years the two captains come in and say the hardest part of their job is benching people. Four years ago with all the problems at Celtic Manor, we had everybody playing in every format. Would you like to see that as part of the game? Seems to have 12 of the best players in the world and each time having four sitting in each session.
TOM WATSON: Yes, I would. I would like to see the change in that format. Then everybody knows they are going to go 36 holes and then everybody knows that they have to be in shape to play. That's one of the important decisions that I may have missed is playing, say, Jimmy Walker for four straight rounds, two 36-hole matches. And if that wasn't up to my decision, then every player wouldn't understand that.
There's some great stuff from Jim Furyk after that, including some nice salty language and an endorsement of Watson and Mickelson. Diplomatic stuff, though no one spoke up to contradict Phil, which might be noteworthy, though the circumstances were tough.
Here's the tape from GolfChannel.com of the Mickelson remarks (overseas readers let me know if this works):
Now for the analysis.
Rex Hoggard called it one of the "most awkward moments in U.S. Ryder Cup history" in his reporting of the press conference.
Gene Wojciechowski's take on the sequence.
Asked, in essence, if the players were part of Watson's management process, Mickelson said, "Uh, no. No, nobody here was in any decision. So, no."
It was a stunning moment. No USA player has played in more Ryder Cup matches than Mickelson. So when he questioned the logic of Watson, and by association, 2012 captain Davis Love III and 2010 captain Corey Pavin -- and does so in a public setting and not long after the latest loss -- it carried considerable weight.
The 65-year-old Watson stared wearily ahead as Mickelson spoke. Asked if he thought Mickelson was being "disloyal," Watson said, "Not at all. ... That's OK. My management philosophy is different than his."
It was bizarre, odd and surprisingly candid. But most of all, it was revealing. If Mickelson felt this way, how many others on the team shared his feelings?
Martin Samuel of the Daily Mail, as only he can write…
There was a war; an American, and not particularly civil, war. At the post-Ryder Cup inquest, Phil Mickelson sat on the right wing of the top table and took down his captain Tom Watson as brutally as any field assassin.
That he did this in cool, measured, very reasonable tones typical of the man only added to the brutality. It was a polite destruction; a highly restrained mugging; a thoroughly decent battering.
Jason Sobel called this "a passive-aggressive coup on Watson's captaincy" and writes, "In the demure world of golf, this was the verbal equivalent to Reggie Jackson brawling with Billy Martin in a dugout or Latrell Sprewell going for the throat of P.J. Carlesimo."
Tim Rosaforte revealed that he texted with Phil Mickelson Saturday night, initially off the record, about Phil’s displeasure with the lack of team communication and followed up with both Mickelson and Paul Azinger. Here’s his report with Steve Burkowski on Live From Downton Abbey.
John Strege on Brandel Chamblee calling this “close to a one-man mutiny” and took on Phil’s generation, even defending the Phil-Tiger pairing at Oakland Hills.
“If you’re looking for a reason why the United States continues to lose, you just saw it in one man. Phil Mickelson. Phil Mickelson, along with the best players of that era, have so corrupted the experience of the Ryder Cup for their fellow competitors by not having records anywhere near what they should, given their rank in the game.
“Players of an era who are the best go to the Ryder Cup and show off. And not goof off. Phil Mickelson in 2004 changed clubs at the Ryder Cup the week of. And the day before, he went to practice to another golf course. This is yet another example of not coming together as a team.
Here is a (sadly) truncated clip of Chamblee discussing Mickelson.
Gary Van Sickle also took Mickelson to task, saying the press conference summed up why the USA keeps losing, though Van Sickle does acknowledge Watson's "questionable pairings" and the Captain's likening Saturday to actors who hadn't “acted well enough to earn the standing ovation at the end.”
Phil Mickelson should know that. He did know that. He knew exactly what he was saying and what he was doing.
Tom Watson’s team lost the Ryder Cup but he didn’t break The Code. Phil Mickelson did. With no code, there’s no team anymore. Maybe the Americans aren’t really a team. Maybe they’re not at all like the close-knit band of brothers they battle every two years.
And maybe it’s time to reconsider what other element the Americans’ last eight Ryder Cup losses had in common.
Phil Mickelson.
Strege with Johnny Miller’s remarks that captain’s don’t matter much, but revealing Tweets from Jason Dufner and Billy Horschel that would imply players feel differently. All are on the Azinger bandwagon.
Alistair Tait and Alex Miceli's report on the presser included this on PGA of America president Ted Bishop's reaction.
“It was disappointing to hear some of the things said in the press conference, we were a team all week,” Bishop said. “There is no set winning formula, except the players playing better on the golf course.”
Michael Collins and Bob Harig found the entire thing bizarre, in this fun video roundup of the Phil-Watson squabble.
I translated for GolfDigest.com what they said and what they meant courtesy of a secret algorithm.
Update on 2014-09-29 04:06 by Geoff
**Many intriguing remarks from the SI/golf.com roundtable, including this from Michael Bamberger and Eamon Lynch:
BAMBERGER: I thought Brandel's response was more interesting. Phil obviously doesn't like Watson and he had the ideal platform to let the world know. Watson's been doing the same thing to others for years, most notably Woods, Gary McCord, liberals. I've been worried that Brandel lost his bite ever since GC dressed him down after he took on Woods' moving ball at the BMW last year. He was consistent here, standing up for golf's gentlemanly tradition. I happen not to agree with Brandel -- I think Phil was doing to Watson what he's done to Finchem and Mike Davis and various others. Letting them know how he feels. He makes golf more interesting. How about Mahan when Phil was going on about pods? His eyes were like, What fresh hell is this? Watson sat Phil, and Phil wasn't going to sit there and take it.
LYNCH: It is clear there is a mutual antipathy between Mickelson and Watson, which wasn't helped by the fact that Watson made public Phil's texting plea to play on Saturday. I suspect that Watson's gaffe was a case of being tone deaf, Phil's was calculated. Autopsies should wait until the corpse is cold. The press conference was not the place to make his point.
Update on 2014-09-29 04:09 by Geoff
**Stabbing references were big in the UK papers, with the Daily Mirror’s Neil McLeman saying Mickelson “publicly knifed” Watson.
The Telegraph's Paul Hayward also went the knifing route but elaborated in engaging, non-gruesome fashion.
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 demoralising 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.
Most interesting of all was seeing James Corrigan's game story for the Telegraph quickly pivot from the winning Donaldson shot and McGinley's captaincy brilliance to the Mickelson-Watson spat.
John Hawkins wonders how "perhaps the greatest wind-and-rain golfer ever turn into such an accountability-dodging curmudgeon amid a foul-weather team atmosphere?" He also concludes that "Watson’s inability to cope with his team’s shortcomings amounts to a much larger and less excusable failure, a catastrophic breach of conduct by a guy who obviously knows better."
Going forward John Barton thinks Steve Stricker has the makings of a successful captain based on this chart capain's who are humble and who cares "deeply for his players and who isn't blinded by the size of his own ego" will be successful.
