Mickelson: We had no game plan

A defeated and dejected United States Ryder Cup team head back across the Atlantic today dealing with recrimination and regret in equal measure.

While captain Tom Watson will no doubt reflect on the mistakes he admits he made in his choice of pairings, disagreements within the team over his leadership style have emerged.

Senior player Phil Mickelson openly questioned the 65-year-old’s management after the 16.5-11.5 defeat at Gleneagles, which was America’s eighth in 10 events.

A number of PGA Tour professionals not with the team this week have already called for Paul Azinger, who masterminded their last victory in 2008, to be brought back as captain, and there already seems to be some support for that - or at least his methods of a ’pod system’ – within the current team.

“There were two things that allowed us to play our best that Paul Azinger did: one was he got everybody invested in the process,” said Mickelson, who was making a record 10th appearance for the US and was understood to be unhappy at having to sit out the whole day on Saturday for the first time in his career.

“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, when they would play, and they had a great leader for each pod.

“The other thing that Paul did really well was he had a great game-plan for us; how we were going to go about doing this, how we were going to go about playing together, 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. 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.”

Asked whether he was consulted in any of the decision-making, Mickelson added: “No. Nobody here was, in any decision.”

Watson made some significant errors of judgement over the three days – like not playing in-form rookies Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth on Friday afternoon and not sending out Mickelson and Keegan Bradley to resume their successful partnership on Saturday – but he stood by his decision and brushed aside Mickelson’s comments.

“He has a difference of opinion. That’s okay. My management philosophy is different than his,” he said.

Watson said he had not read Azinger’s book about a winning Ryder Cup strategy.

“I didn’t discount it. I just had a different philosophy right off the bat,” he said.

America’s other senior pro, Jim Furyk – on his ninth appearance – was reluctant to get involved in the debate on captaincy strategy and admitted he had never really analysed why they could not get it right.

“You have already asked me what’s the winning formula and what’s the difference year in, year out,” he said.

“If I could put my finger on it, I would have changed this s**t a long time ago, but we haven’t and we are going to keep searching.”