TOM WATSON has admitted for the first time that he was hurt by the criticisms directed at him by several members of the US Ryder Cup team in the immediate aftermath of their defeat at Gleneagles last September.
Phil Mickelson was especially outspoken, criticising Watson for failing to communicate more closely with his players while also highlighting the way Paul Azinger involved his entire team when the US won, at Valhalla in 2008.
Watson responded several days later, saying: "I was captain and, in hindsight, whatever mistakes were made were mine and I take complete and full responsibility for them."
But the 65-year-old eight-time major winner also claimed on a visit to St Andrews this week to promote an exhibition of his five Open trophies at the British Golf Museum that Mickelson should have been more discreet.
He confessed: "The criticism hurt to a certain degree, the way it played out at the end with Phil making the comments that probably should have been made in a private room.
"It was disappointing, but we got beat by the better team. Our team played its heart out, and, after getting off to a great start on the Sunday, if they had continued along that path we could have been right there at the end.
"But the European team responded in the singles matches and when your team is 56 shots higher, you don't expect to win. The European team played better than we did.
"The bottom line is that I made the decisions based on the best information at the time and I had the support of my vice captains. We made collective decisions on who was going to play with whom.
"You try and pair the best quality team together, and I don't really regret too much the teams I played. You can always look back, and with hindsight, yea, it's easy now, but at the time it is impossible to make these decisions.
"Jimmy Walker played brilliant golf for us. My only regret as far as the pairings are concerned was that Jimmy got tired out on the Saturday afternoon.
"He went 18 holes every round. I played him 36 the first day and 36 the second and that was a mistake on my part.
"That fourth match on the Saturday afternoon, I didn't know his physical condition. Then that third hole I saw him hit a shot and thought. 'Oh my God', I think he has lost his legs.
"Probably I shouldn't have made the decision to play him. But hindsight is a great thing."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article