***Official Bushwood Country Club Lounge***

[smittysbar]

Okay, here is a place for the Golfers to talk about tournaments, clubs, swing help or thoughts.

Today is the Players Championship, which I think ought to be the 5th Major. Largest pot in the PGA. The daunting 17th, which seems to bring excitement every year. At least we will get to see Sergio blow up yet again.

I am ready to see some water balls!

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

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

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.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

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.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

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.

[OnTheWarpath15]

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.

[Jerm]

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...

[OnTheWarpath15]

Originally Posted by Jerm

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.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by Joe Posnanski

I’m saying that without sarcasm – it seems probable to me that American players will only respond to a nice guy captain. That’s fine, but then you don’t hire Watson. He’s not a nice guy, not in that way. And that’s what I mean when I say that they really didn’t want him as captain. Mickelson’s record coming into this the Ryder Cup was 11-17-6. That’s spectacularly bad for a player of Mickelson’s skills. Look at the Ryder Cup records of other players with at least five major championships (winning percentage in parentheses):

• Arnold Palmer: 22-8-3 (71.2%)

• Tom Watson: 10-4-1 (70%)

• Lee Trevino: 17-7-6 (66.6%)

• Jack Nicklaus: 17-8-3 (66.0%)

• Seve Ballesteros: 20-12-5 (60.8%)

• Nick Faldo: 23-19-4 (54.3%)

• Tiger Woods: 13-17-3 (43.9%)

• Phil Mickelson: 13-18-6 (43.2%)

From this, you might determine that Mickelson is the problem and not the solution (ditto for Tiger). You would think the PGA of America brought in Watson to deal with the issues of the recent generation of great American golfers, not cater to their whims. Watson likes Mickelson (or did before the Ryder Cup, don’t know about now) but his job was to try and pull a major upset and win a Ryder Cup in Europe. Mickelson has never been on a team that has done that. The thought had to be that Watson would change things.

But the team wasn’t ready for Watson. They didn’t respond to Watson. They didn’t want a captain like Watson. Mickelson’s passive-aggressive rant after the United States' overwhelming loss about Paul Azinger’s magical pod system was a perfect summary of events. The U.S. just got its butts kicked all over Scotland, and this guy’s talking nonsense about pods.

http://www.golfchannel.com/news/joe-...tain-it-hired/

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by OnTheWarpath58

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.

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.

[OnTheWarpath15]

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.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

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

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.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by OnTheWarpath58

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.

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

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

So is what he accomplished in his career.

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.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Mickelson is not taking flak, Watson is.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

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.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

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.''