RYDER CUP | REVIEW
US Captain Tom Watson has been under fire from the media for the way he managed his players in Scotland 58
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Lewine Mair examines what went wrong for the Americans at Gleneagles, which led to their eighth loss in the past 10 Ryder Cups. Photography by Charles McLaughlin
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hat is always hammered into the players in any team situation is that they should keep fighting whatever the situation. The American Ryder Cup side did just that in 1999 to turn a 6 – 10 deficit into a win, while the Europeans did precisely the same in 2012. However, when the US side of 2014 were trailing by 6-10 at Gleneagles, the atmosphere was hardly conducive to one more almighty turnaround. Rather did the team begin to unravel from the moment Tom Watson walked through the door of the team-room on the Saturday night. “This team sucks,” was one version of how the US captain started his address; “This team stinks at foursomes” another. Neither was particularly edifying from this man of many majors. Watson praised Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed but was roundly dismissive of the rest of them. His alarmed audience should maybe have thought twice as to whether the moment was right to hand over the somewhat strange present they – or someone else – had prepared for him. Namely, a replica of the Ryder Cup with the US names engraved on the side. The presentation went ahead as planned. On another day, Watson might have come up with a suitably cryptic quip. With things the way they were, he brushed off the gift, saying it meant nothing. He was only interested in winning the genuine article.
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On another day, Watson might have come up with a suitably cryptic quip. With things the way they were, he brushed off the gift, saying it meant nothing. He was only interested in winning the genuine article.
Clockwise from top: Patrick Reed put in a typically feisty performance on his Ryder Cup debut; Phil Mickelson, one of Watson's biggest critics; Jordan Spieth was one of the few players who received praise from his captain; Watson and Vice Captain Andy North 60
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A day earlier, Phil Mickelson had stood up for Watson, even to the point of suggesting that he had done the right thing in leaving him out of the Friday foursomes. “Maybe there are younger pups who can do better than me,” he had suggested, sportingly. But after Watson had left him on the sidelines throughout Saturday, this senior player was altogether less well-disposed towards the 65-year-old. He did his bit to try and raise his teammates’ spirits on Saturday night but Watson, who had his back to him, was by all accounts still bristling. It was in the immediate wake of the team’s subsequent 16 ½ - 11 ½ defeat that Mickelson let rip. The US team had taken the stage for the postmatch conference and Watson and Mickelson were sitting four or five spaces apart as Mickelson made plain that Watson’s leadership had not matched up to that of Paul Azinger. (In 2008,
Azinger divided his team into pods in order that players would know each other well by the time they set out on foursomes and fourballs.) Mickelson also complained that the players had never been in on Watson’s decision-making process. When no-one from that embarrassed body of men sprang to Watson’s defence, you had to assume that they agreed with Mickelson’s every word. Or, perhaps, that they were thinking ahead to how he might be their next captain. To be ruthlessly honest, there were signs at the “Twelve Months to Go Celebrations” at Gleneagles that Watson’s long absence from the PGA Tour and Ryder Cup scene might be an issue. At one of the conferences that took place over the two days, he and Paul McGinley had been asked what they felt to be their strengths. McGinley said with due modesty that it was probably no bad thing from his point of view that he was still playing among his troops. In the wake of that reply, Watson went off at a tangent to say that he felt he had been “unfairly criticised” for being old. “Maybe I am old,” he said, before asking his audience to look at the other side of the coin: “I’ve been there before and the players know that I know what they’re going through.” (The last HKGOLFER.COM
time he attended a Ryder Cup was 20 years ago.) There was more to suggest that he was not exactly au fait with the atmosphere at a modern Ryder Cup. When speaking to an assortment of youngsters who had been included in Year to Go schedule of events, Watson advised this wide-eyed little party that the spectators in ‘14 would be clapping America’s missed five-footers no less eagerly than they had applauded one of his errant putts in 1977. “It’s one of those things you have to deal with,” he told them. George O’Grady, the CEO of the European Tour felt that a correction was in order. He had been at Lytham and in his opinion the applause had been directed at a trailing European pair whose fortunes had suddenly taken a turn for the better. After Bob Harig of ESPN had broken the news of what happened in the American team room on Sat 20 September 2014, Watson issued an apology via the PGA of America. He said he took responsibility for the defeat and added that he was sorry if his words had sent out the wrong message. In many quarters, the reception given to that carefully-crafted missive was on a par with Watson’s reaction to that Ryder Cup replica. HKGOLFER.COM
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