The Golf Blog: Phil Mickelson told Captain Davis Love not to play him and Keegan Bradley Saturday afternoon, ending second-guessing by golf media
The Golf Blog says: Phil Mickelson, 42 years old, revealed during the press conference following the Ryder Cup loss that he told Captain Davis Love not to play him and Keegan Bradley in the Saturday afternoon match, even though the pairing was 3-0. Mickelson, who has arthritis, said he was putting everything into the Saturday morning match (which they won 7-6), and would not have enough in the tank to go a fourth straight match.
Phil’s sentiments seem justified based on past history. Only 1 American has ever gone 5-0 in a Ryder Cup, and that was Larry Nelson back in 1979. So pushing Phil and Keegan to play 5 matches did not have a high probability that they would win both Saturday and Sunday matches.
Even if Phil and Keegan had played on Saturday afternoon, it would not have changed the result. The pairing played the 2nd match in each of their first 3 sessions, so it’s pretty safe to say that Davis would have put them in the 2nd match on Saturday afternoon–a slot that the U.S. team of Bubba Watson and Webb Simpson won anyway. So if Phil and Keegan played and won a point on Saturday afternoon–which was by no means certain, they wouldn’t have altered the score on Saturday. The U.S. still would have had a commanding 10-6 lead.
Many in the golf media, including Nick Faldo (who was a terrible Ryder Cup captain), Brandel Chamblee, and Frank Nobilo on the Golf Channel, were second-guessing Davis’s decision to sit the winning team of Mickelson and Bradley. Well, it turns out that it wasn’t Davis’s decision. It was Phil’s. Case closed.
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