If we're being honest, barring a miracle tomorrow, Watson might go down as the second worse RC captain ever only behind dummy Hal Sutton.

He's got pretty much every major decision wrong, starting with his picks.

Can we leave Webb Simpson in Scotland?

What a Gof awful pick....

Spieth and Mahan in the middle of epic choke jobs when the U.S. can ill afford it....

This is a ****ing embarrassment for a team. Wow

Not as bad as the Solheim Cup, but close.

Spieth with one of the worst chokes you'll ever see in a Ryder, Presidents, etc.

Team has zero heart and intensity and a whole lot of gee golly shucks...could learn a thing or two from Reed.

Wonder who Bubba will blame his no show this week on...certainly not himself.

LOL at Mahan...did it AGAIN.

Great pick there....

Mahan squarely in the middle of the fairway from about 220 bogeys and loses the hole...

Bradley getting blown out by Jamie Donaldson and Webb Simpson getting handled by Poulter who's playing worse than anyone in the Ryder Cup.

Worst...picks...EVER...

Tom Watson looking bad with his picks, but his other players played like pussies.

He's handled just about everything poorly TBH....

You're right though, doesn't help that for the most part it looks like the USA team could give a **** less. Gutless.

I'm curious, what else has Tom handled poorly

The Europe team is just better (especially with the US missing Tiger, Dufner, Dustin Johnson, Stricker, etc.). There isn't a whole lot anybody could have done about that.

Pairings...who to play and who to sit.

No clue why he sat Spieth/Reed Friday afternoon...Mickelson/Bradley should not have played Friday afternoon Foursomes but should've been out for the Saturday morning Fourball. Playing Walker/Fowler all 4 sessions was a big no no...they were gassed by Friday afternoon and it showed. No clue why he ran out Simpson/Watson in the opening match either...the tone was set when they got trounced.

They care more too...goes a long way, esp. in the Ryder Cup.

Wanna know why we're not winning another RC in the forseeable future....

Hunter Mahan after blowing a 4-up lead: "I'm happy with how I played out there."

LOL.....

Hunter Mahan is a devout coward. Always has been. Nice guy, but he has the guts of a turd burglar.

The US team was clearly outclassed, but Watson did them no favors. I know it won't be a popular opinion on here, but the guy has always been an arrogant sonofabitch. Not surprising his stubbornness bit him in the ass here.

Paul Azinger should be the RC captain from now until he doesn't want it any more...only winning captain in the last 15 years...and has the balls and the guts to wear off on his players, not this gee golly shucks bullshit we keep seeing.

So sick of the U.S' players attitudes toward this...you would NEVER see the Euros do some of the things the American players do, they want to stomp our brains out.

Mickelson and Watson taking pretty open shots at each other during the post matches press conference...WOW...this has been more entertaining than the matches lol.

The Ryder cup: played every few years to remind the world that America cannot play golf as a team

Mickelson showing some of his true colors there. He might be right, but just not the time/place to rip on a captain in Tom Watson like that.

That's exactly the place to do it. Phil stood up for Mahan when he was a blubbering mess in the last cup.He's been an exemplary teammate

Tim Rosaforte was saying on the GC that Mickelson text him and told him he wasn't the only player that felt that way...sounded like the majority did.

If you watched the PC it really came off as Mickelson speaking up for the team and stating how they all felt...Bradley and Furyk both had chances to disagree with him and they didn't, speaks volumes.

Watson took some cheap shots at Mickelson too, insinuating he was out of shape and what not. It was pretty crazy to watch...

Again, it's not popular to say, but as I mentioned earlier, Watson has always been more of a bastard than people around the KC area want to admit.

Mickelson played fine this week. He's the senior player on the team. He's tried to instill more of a RC atmosphere amongst the young players by having them play money matches on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and he's made a habit of picking up his teammates, with Mahan being the most notable example.

Watson sat him for the entire day on Saturday despite multiple pleas to play. He'd earned the right to play, and if you look at the results, it's fair to say that the outcome certainly wouldn't have been any worse.

I know you're a Phil fan, but throwing the captain (who happens to be a golf legend) completely under the bus in front of the media after a loss like that is not a good look for him.

That captain made a complete ass of himself this week. Tom Watson isn't sacrosanct because he won a bunch of British Opens in the Carter administration.

Whether Tom Watson is a terrible captain/asshole himself is completely irrelevant to the point.

Personally, I applaud Phil for having the balls to answer the question honestly instead of trying to duck it.

He was going to get blasted either way, IMO. Had he waited and made his comments "behind closed doors" as everyone seems to think would have been best, is there any doubt those comments would have been leaked within 30 minutes?

He'd be getting killed if his "private sniping" stated getting Tweeted out by Rosaforte or Jason Sobel.

Watson seemed to think his status as a golf legend was all that was required of the job. His captaincy reminded me of Clint Eastwood in [i]Gran Torino[/]. "Get off my lawn" or "crotchety old man" is not a management style.

Watson ****ed this thing up from the get-go. Leaving Horschel and Kirk at home, sitting Reed and Spieth on Friday afternoon, sitting Lefty and Keegan for three straight matches, playing Rickie and Jimmy too much. Giving the players no part of the decision making, or even having explanations for your decisions.

The whole weekend was a mess, and probably will be again in Minnesota in two years unless the PGA of America fixes the selection system for both players and coaches.

I hate the idea of automatic qualifying players....then you're stuck with chokers like Furyk or assholes like Bubba who could give a shit less to play it and it shows.

Let the captain mold exactly what kind of team and players he wants...

The best thing that could happen is that the Tour takes over from the PGA of America - but that would never happen.

Best you'll be able to do at this point is hope a captain goes in there and makes demands like Zinger did prior to 2008.

I'm fine with automatic selections, but would like to see there only be 6 spots, and the other 6 reserved for Captain's Picks to be made the week of or Sunday night following the Tour Championship.

Also, I'd like to see more weight given to wins during the regular season and playoffs for the automatic selections, so a guy like Furyk who regularly Top 10's but never closes don't automatically make the team.

I'd also like to see the American tour players have some voice in who is named captain like they do in Europe, instead of the PGA naming whoever the **** they want. And enough with the ****ing politics. Decide who would be the BEST captain and ignore the career resume. Some of the best player in history have been shitty leaders. A good playas img resume means shit. Pick a guy who can LEAD MEN.

None of this will ever happen, but it would be a good start, IMO.

Horschel hadn't done anything all season prior to the captain's picks deadline, so kind of hard to blame Watson there. Personally, I think the deadline should be pushed later and that there should be less automatic qualifiers.

While I agree that guys like Lefty and Tiger should be playing better in these events, comparing them to Palmer, Watson, Nicklaus, etc. is ****ing ridiculous.

Those guys should have a winning record - they played against absolute shitheels.

The game changed when the rest of Europe was invited to play, and the rise of the European Tour has played a role as well.

So is what he accomplished in his career.

Phil was in the right. Period. It's not an accident that several players immediately took to his defense afterward. Watson took a Rumsfeld approach to management and ****ed it up. He thought he had all the answers and he didn't even understand the questions. Moreover, he was bellicose when confronted with any questioning of his decisions.

It's the same shit in every other sport: you can get away with being an asshole if you're good. Todd Haley was not a good coach, so the asshole schtick wore out quick. Tom Watson was not a good captain.

You have to realize that he's quoting one of the biggest ****ing dumbasses/con-men in the history of sportswriting.

I didn't say it wasn't, but Watson's legend status adds to the optics of it for Phil. It's very much akin to a top player throwing his head coach under the bus immediately after losing a championship game. Right or not, that was really neither the time or place to say something like that. In doing it, he made the American team look like a bunch of bickering losers with no leadership (which it seems that they were). And that's why Phil is getting all the flak he is receiving right now.

Mickelson is not taking flak, Watson is.

Not from what I watched last night on the GC (pretty much every one of their commentators ripped Phil) and from what I've read today (there is a lot more where that Posnanski article came from). After Phil's unnecessary public rant in the aftermath of a loss, Watson is now coming off as the sympathetic one of the two.

Yeah, Tom Watson, sympathetic figure:

http://espn.go.com/golf/rydercup14/s...phil-mickelson

Phil Mickelson's candid and blunt assessment of U.S. Ryder Cup fortunes last Sunday night at Gleneagles was in response to, among other things, captain Tom Watson's approach to what was supposed to be a Saturday night team-bonding session that turned ugly, sources told ESPN.com this week.

Four sources who witnessed the proceedings in the U.S. team room at the Gleneagles Hotel said that Watson took no responsibility for any shortcomings, scoffed at a gift that the U.S. team members gave him, ridiculed several European team players and started the proceedings by denigrating the Americans' play that afternoon.

"You could have heard a pin drop in that room,'' one of those in attendance said. "He was pissed. It all went from there.''

[+] EnlargePhil Mickelson, Tom Watson
GLYN KIRK/AFP/Getty Images
Sources told ESPN.com that Tom Watson took issue with his team's play, among other things, during a Saturday night meeting at the Ryder Cup, leading Phil Mickelson to offer a stinging rebuttal of Watson's captaincy one day later.
The U.S. lost 16½-11½ to the Europeans at Gleneagles, the eighth American defeat in the past 10 Ryder Cups. Watson, the last U.S. captain to win on European soil in 1993, was brought back for a second try, his appointment championed as new thinking for the PGA of America, which had not gone with a repeat captain since Jack Nicklaus in 1987. But Watson was criticized for failing to get to know his players, for his communication skills, for his pairings and ultimately for the way he handled discussions with the team.

Attempts to reach Watson through the PGA of America, which is responsible for the Ryder Cup and picking the U.S. captain, were unsuccessful Friday afternoon.

After the team's defeat Sunday night, Mickelson, although not by name, called out Watson in the media session, which included all 12 players and Watson sitting at the dais in the middle.

"Nobody here was in [on] any decision,'' Mickelson said at one point, and lauded the system used by captain Paul Azinger during the Americans' Ryder Cup win in 2008. "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."

A night earlier, the U.S. had fallen behind 10-6 after a horrific afternoon in foursomes (alternate shot), in which it won just a half-point out of four. Earlier, much to their surprise, Mickelson and regular partner Keegan Bradley were told they would not be playing in the afternoon after also sitting out the morning session. It was the first time in 10 Ryder Cup appearances that Mickelson, 44, had sat out an entire session.

Given Mickelson's stature in the game as well as the fact that he and Bradley were 4-1 as a team in the Ryder Cup (not to mention 2-1-1 at the Presidents Cup), most expected them to be in the lineup, perhaps in place of Rickie Fowler and Jimmy Walker, who had just seen their third straight match go to the 18th hole, all ending in ties. But despite Mickelson's attempts to talk his way into playing, Watson held firm.

Things blew up after the Americans performed so poorly that Saturday afternoon. Fowler and Walker, playing their fourth match, lost to the rested European team of Graeme McDowell and Victor Dubuisson, 5 and 4.

“
You could have heard a pin drop in that room. He was pissed. It all went from there.
”
- Source in the U.S. team room on captain Tom Watson's address to players
Despite the 10-6 deficit, the U.S. team was fairly upbeat Saturday evening looking ahead to the Sunday singles, the pairings for which had just been announced. Fresh in the players' minds was the fact that Europe had come back from the same margin two years earlier at Medinah. And two players in the room, Mickelson and Jim Furyk, were on the 1999 U.S. team that also came back from that score on the final day at The Country Club in Brookline.

They gathered in the Team Room that night -- a hotel ballroom at the lavish Gleneagles Hotel with TVs, ping-pong tables, food and drink. They were joined by their wives or girlfriends (except for Fowler), as well as their caddies and their significant others. Some of the hotel staff were in the room, as were a few members of the PGA of America staff on hand. In all, more than 40 people were there when Watson returned to the Team Room after speaking to the media about the Sunday pairings.

Watson started by saying, according to all of the sources: "You stink at foursomes.''

After praising the rookie team of Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth, Watson went through the Sunday singles pairings and ridiculed several members of the European side as he went through the matchups. Soon after, Watson was presented a gift by Furyk, a replica of the Ryder Cup trophy that was signed by every member of the team. Instead of thanking them, the sources said Watson said the gift meant nothing to him if the players didn't get the real Ryder Cup on Sunday and that he wanted to be holding it aloft on the green in victory.

Said one of the sources: "That's almost verbatim. He said it basically means nothing to me.''

Added another: "It was fairly shocking that he treated this thoughtful gift with such disdain.''

When Watson was done, other players, as is standard, were invited to speak, and several did, as well as assistant captains Andy North, Raymond Floyd and Steve Stricker. (North also works as an ESPN golf commentator.) Mickelson went last, and he came to the front of the room, then sat in a chair with his back to Watson while he addressed the team, telling it, among other things, that he felt good about a comeback.

"Phil went player by player and told a story about each one," one source in the room said. "It changed the tenor of the room from completely negative and heads down to 'Let's give this a go tomorrow.' He gave almost 180 degrees difference than what Tom did.''

The comeback fell short, as the U.S. earned just 5½ of the 8½ points it needed for the comeback.

According to three witnesses, Watson greeted several of the singles losers Sunday, including Bradley, by telling them they should have played better.

Amidst all the postmortems, Mickelson offered a stinging rebuttal to the captaincy of the eight-time major champion Watson, who became the oldest captain in Ryder Cup history. When things got a bit testy in the interview room due to Mickelson's comments, Watson attempted to dismiss the obvious tension by saying, "My management philosophy is different than his.''

Watson also disagreed with the Azinger method, saying, "It takes 12 players to win. It's not pods.''

But Mickelson had made his point.

Said one of the sources: "[Mickelson] was trying to lead the team and protect the team there when he put himself under the gun pretty good on Sunday night. He did that for a lot of people.''

Glad you bumped this thread, forgot to post.

Played TPC Southwind last weekend in Memphis. First round from the tourney tees (6800), played pretty well, shot even.

Second 18, backed up and played the Tour tees? **** thats a hard golf course. I played my ass off and barely broke 80. Par 70, 7320. It's a great golf course.

Also, if in Memphis, play Mirimichi. It's a great track.

Such leaks and the details were not at all surprising after the mess that was Sunday (and if Phil and the players wanted somebody to blame for their poor performance, this would have been the way to go about it originally).

But none of this changes the fact that Phil came off as the bigger asshole of the two by throwing his legend captain completely under the bus publicly after a loss. It's akin to somebody like LeBron blaming Spoelstra and his system after losing to the Spurs.

After Spolestra benched LeBron to start the 4th quarter of a ten point game, then blamed the players for the failures, took none of the responsibility himself, and chastised a gift worth as much as a new car? Yeah, I think I'd be fine with LeBron backing over him a few times after that.

You can personally be fine with it all you want, but LeBron would still be skewered by the media and looked at as a gutless puke for scapegoating a coach publicly after a bad loss in such a scenario. He'd know never to do such a thing. Although the optics wouldn't even look as bad as they do with Mickelson/Watson because Spoelstra doesn't hold Watson's hallowed place in his respective sport.

There are times where you have to hold your tongue publicly if you give a shit about how you're perceived. Sunday was clearly one of those times. Apparently Phil is old enough now, though, that he just doesn't give a ****.

No one respects Tom Watson as a Ryder Cup captain because he's acted like a complete jackass. It's the same reason why no one really respects Gary Player.

If you'd like, I can easily provide you a link to one of the most popular golf forums online and a 500+ reply thread that discusses this. Take the temperature of the room yourself after Watson's antics came into the fore and tell me how unprofessional Phil really was.

Nobody complained one bit about Tom Watson until a bunch of outclassed US golfers got beat in embarrassing fashion by Europe. If you can't see that the optics of this look terrible (regardless of whether Watson is a massive prick with no management skills at all), I don't know what to tell you.

There would be about as much point to that as looking at a CNN Internet poll on the outcome of the US general election.

No one complained about Tom Watson until he started calling his own golfers out of shape, bashing the Europeans for not being good, throwing his own players under the bus, and bashing the ****ing gift they gave him while taking no responsibility for his own failure.

Christ, it's like you are set on "argue" without an ability to actually discern new information as it is presented.

Are you not capable of understanding the immense difference between keeping things in-house and taking them public in this case (or really, in any team environment)?

I'm not the one with the bias here. And again, this "new information" really doesn't change anything about the optics of that media conference. In fact, I think everyone thought Watson was a shitty captain well before Phil threw him under the bus.

1) You are not Jay Carney. Stop saying "Optics". It's a pointless political buzzword that means nothing, and every time you say it you come off like a pretentious, obscurantist dumbass.

2) Why does Watson deserve to have such disrespectful and ruinous behavior kept in-house? What did he do as captain of that team to earn that right? He belittled his players, their contributions, and the opposing side.

3) Watson being a shitty captain is discrete from him being a shitty human being worthy of being thrown under the bus. Phil's comments and the subsequent revelations show why Phil's comments were deserved. The responses by his teammates, and several members of the pro tour afterwards, show why he was correct.

This wasn't normal "you guys have to play better" bullshit. He was being a one who sucks the penis and deserved to be taken to task for being a one who sucks the penis. That's why people have soured on him, and it has nothing to do with bias; it has everything to do with being able to actually process information rather than resorting to trite, moronic cliches, which is what composes your entire argument.

Notice how people weren't going after Hal Sutton for his stupidity as RC Captain? He had 1/10 the career Watson did. You know what the difference was? He was incompetent, but he wasn't disrepectful to his players or the opposition, nor did he spend an entire evening belittling their performance.

All the flak Tom Watson took was earned.

Nonsense. Perception (is that a less offensive, pretentious word to you than "optics?" LMAO) is everything in PR.

I have said nothing about what Watson deserves or doesn't deserve. Watson could be the shittiest person in golf and that still wouldn't make Mickelson throwing him under the bus in public look good on him.

I have said nothing about whether Phil was correct or not (although I don't think a different captain would have kept the lesser talented US from getting their asses kicked anyway, though). That was never the point.

Your perspective, of course, is completely biased in that you are a massive Phil Mickelson fan. As such, I've never been surprised whenever you've painted his actions in a good light. But there is a reason Mickelson got ripped after that press conference and it had everything to do with needlessly taking that internal strife public. It made him look disrespectful and it made the US team look like a collective joke.

http://m.espn.go.com/golf/story?storyId=11636089

Yeesh......

Sutton also didn't bench Mickelson for an entire day of play.

And just in case you think I'm coming up with the Mickelson criticism out of thin air, here's another example. Whether you think Faldo, Monty, and Chamblee are right about any of their claims or not (especially about Phil somehow being a "corruptive" influence or "goofing off"), Phil did indeed catch shit for taking all this public in the way he did.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/0...0RT0XE20140928

I'm looking for some help/advice on rangefinders...

My dad would like one for his birthday. He's in his 60's and would like something relatively easy to use. I know that Bushnell and Leupold make pretty good ones. Any suggestions?

May not be what you're looking for, but I picked up a GolfBuddy Voice and I love it.
All it has is distances to the green (center, front, and back) but I don't need a whole lot more. Just turn it on and go. I haven't had any issues with it and the battery life on it is good for at least two rounds a day (haven't tried more than that).
I picked mine up on E-bay new for right at $100

http://www.golfbuddyglobal.com/products/voice.asp

Gave myself an early Christmas present. My irons are old, really old. Been wanting to upgrade for a couple of years now. I was looking at the Taylormade Burner 2.0 for awhile and then around Black Friday, Dick's Sporting Goods had some Rocketballz irons on sale for $249. I went to check them out and hit a few balls with a demo 7I. I liked them but had to order them because they were out of stock.

The next day, I was looking at more info on them and discovered I had been hitting a Rocketbladez iron, not Rocketballz. The Bladez were $449. I started looking around and found them online for $299. I cancelled the order on the other ones and ordered the Bladez.

They showed up today. I can't wait to play them, but...Winter. :cuss:

http://www.mygolfway.com/wp-content/...-F01-Abrir.jpg

Nice, I need to update my irons

The only Taylor made club I hit was a driver 320i or something. I demo'd it at golf discount in Martin city and was killing it. A few hundred later it was mine. I got it out on the course and could not hit it for shit. I don't know if it was the compression on the range balls or what but I could not hit it for shit. Unloaded it for a big loss and went back to the big Bertha lol

I have a 2007 model Burner driver. Love it, love it, love it!

I had a friend who owned an old burner with a bubble shaft and he could knock the **** out of it. The 320i I had would never get off the ground. One of the most frustrating things ever LMAO

So Bob Dole just inherited a giant inventory of new (a couple hundred) and used (thousands) golf balls. What is the best way to move these other than peddling them to all the local golfers I know. Bob Dole doesn't even have a clue how much to charge for the damned things.

Haven't even made a real dent in cataloging everything. All of these are in the box. Tips?

Pinnacle Gold Distance NIB 9
Pinnacle 392 LS NIB 3
ProStaff Tour Tranjectory NIB 3
Titeist DT Carry NIB 12
Titleist DT Distance NIB 3
Top Flite XL 2000 NIB 15
Top Flite XL 2000 Mint 18
Top Flite Strata NIB 3
Ultra Titanium NIB 15
Top Flite XL NIB 6
Callaway Mint 3
Titleist NXT NIB 3
Greg Norman Attack Dist NIB 3

Wish you had these at Ferguson

You probably should start by sending me 3 or 4 boxes for evaluation purposes.

Going through the used, it looks like there are going to be a lot of B grade with minor scuffs. Bob Dole could probably throw some of those your way. :)

Anyone watching the Evian Championship? Beautiful course. Enjoy watching the gals play.

So my wife bought me five 1/2 hour lessons for Christmas. I am self taught and have been playing for 20+ years without a single lesson. I generally shoot in the mid 90s to low 100s. Personal best is 86 on a par 70 course. My biggest weakness is my approach shots, especially higher lofted clubs.

My first lesson was tonight. It went very well. We worked on my grip, stance and wrist hinge at the top. I knew my grip was all wrong, but I've been doing the same thing for years. I got fairly comfortable with it by the end of the lesson. He changed my stance so that I wasn't so bent over. It allowed me to get a little closer to the ball. And I really started seeing immediate results by focusing on hinging my wrists at the top of my swing. I stopped pushing the ball to the right and immediately gained 15-20 yards on my shots. I only hit the 7 and then 5 irons but the difference was dramatic.

Overall he thought I had the foundation of a pretty good swing which made me feel good. Mostly minor tweaks today and they have me excited to get out and practice before my next lesson in a week. I'll probably wait until after my next lesson before I take it out on the course.

Sweet, awesome to hear.

Almost every time I would go with my swing coach growing up I'd be ass for a day or two.

Instant results are awesome though

That's cool, Dart...im about the same score after many years, but resist trying lessons, I figure after 30 years of playing it's not going to help...hopefully, you can drop into the low 80's with the assistance.

Good Luck!

Oh, an BTW golfers, it's Masters Week!

:clap:

I have the Taylor Made 3 and 5 wood bubble Burner for the last 15 years at least and think they are great. I had the Bubble driver also but traded it in years ago as I ddin't like it as much. I bought the 3 club set used for real cheap, like $150 and they were in great shape

Driver is now a Cobra for last 5-6 years but think it's time for a change. It looks so small compared to the new Drivers

So who you guus got this weekend at augusta?

Also, you taylor made guys should check out the new m1 and m2 drivers. I'm a Titleist guy, but the taylor made rep set up an m2 for me today on the range and it's pretty legit.

I was getting 175 ball speed on it. It's fire

The final round of The Masters is about to begin on CBS. Spieth going for another major. One shot ahead of Smylie Kaufman and two shots ahead of Matsuyama and 58 year old Bernhard Langer.

C'MON LANGER. WIN ONE FOR US OLD FARTS

Spieth distancing a little. Still the back and as we've seen, anything can happen there

Spieth can bunt it around the back, not take any chances and win.

Just keep it out of the water on 11,12,13 and 15.

Choke by Spieth. Gonna get +4 on this hole at best.

Speith falling apart. Let's see if he can get his head back

Got caught up watching the end of the Royals game... what the heck happened here? Turned over just in time to see Spieth quad bogey.

Yeah, me too. What a collapse.

Splash, splash