The US team had taken the stage for the post-match 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.
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