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Phil Mickelson disses Tom Watson after Ryder Cup loss

"Absolutely we had a winning philosophy, but the bottom line is they kicked our butts," Watson said.

By Matt Bradwell
USA's captain Tom Watson watches his team on the second day of the 2014 Ryder Cup in Gleneagles,Scotland on September 27, 2014. UPI/Hugo Philpott
1 of 16 | USA's captain Tom Watson watches his team on the second day of the 2014 Ryder Cup in Gleneagles,Scotland on September 27, 2014. UPI/Hugo Philpott | License Photo

PERTHSHIRE, Scotland, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- Ten-year Ryder Cup veteran Phil Mickelson had choice words for U.S. captain Tom Watson at the post Cup press conference following the Americans' 16½ - 11½ loss to Europe on in the Ryder Cup Sunday at Gleneagles.

"Unfortunately, we have strayed from a winning formula in the last three Ryder Cups, and we need to consider maybe getting back to that formula that helped us play our best," Mickelson said while Watson gawked at him, visibly offended from only a few feet away.

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"[2008 winning captain Paul Azinger] 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, who -- when they would play, and they had a great leader for each pod. In my case, we had Ray Floyd, and we hung out together and we were all invested in each other's play. We were invested in picking Hunter [Mahan] that week; Anthony Kim and myself and Justin [Leonard] were in a pod, and we were involved on having Hunter be our guy to fill our pod. So we were invested in the process.

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"And 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; golf ball, format, what we were going to do, if so-and-so is playing well, if so-and-so is not playing well, we had a real game plan."

Reports from the press conference consistently describe the mood in the room as tense and awkward.

For his part, Watson told reporters he agreed his strategy was markedly different than Azinger's, but it was not absent.

"Absolutely we had a winning philosophy, but the bottom line is they kicked our butts," Watson shot back.

"I had a different philosophy as far as being a captain of this team," he said. "It takes 12 players to win. It's not pods. It's 12 players. And I felt -- yes, I did talk to the players, but my vice captains [Andy North, Steve Stricker and Floyd] were very instrumental in making decisions as to whom to pair with. I had a different philosophy than Paul. I decided not to go that way."

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