A lot is riding on this Ryder Cup for Tom Watson.

This revered figure of American golf, now 65 years old, has a lifetime of achievement behind him and no-one in golf will forget it. But Watson, for the sake of one last piece of glory, needs the next two days of golf at Gleneagles to go his way.

Hilary Watson, the wife of the USA captain, has said her husband "doesn't do anything in half-measures and has put a ton of time and effort" into these 2014 Ryder Cup matches. With good reason, too, because, as strange as it sounds, Watson feels he has something to prove to people who would diminish him.

Yesterday he did not get off to the best of starts in doing just that. Many felt Watson made a peculiar - not to say damaging - decision in axing Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed from his afternoon foursomes, after the American pair had put Ian Poulter and Stephen Gallacher to the sword by 5 and 4 in the morning fourballs.

Watson finished yesterday's sessions trailing 5-3 to Paul McGinley's Europe. Not only that, but Europe's 3½-½ victory in the afternoon foursomes was the biggest any European team has recorded in that part of the competition.

Momentum is said to be everything in a Ryder Cup, which Watson appeared to have in spades in Spieth and Reed. It left him looking faintly beleaguered last night while fending off his critics, not always in convincing fashion.

"I know you're all going to ask me questions about [dropping] Spieth and Reed but I felt at the time it was the best decision not to play them, for a variety of reasons," said Watson.

In seeking to explain what for some was the inexplicable - dropping Spieth and Reed when the pair felt their confidence brimming and wanted to go back out - Watson chose to cite his three vice-captains in the responsibility.

"It was a decision that my vice-captains and I made - it was a decision we felt very strongly about," said Watson. "I asked my vice captains, 'give me an update, how are they playing?' That's part of the process of it. It's part of being in 'the now'. We just didn't make the putts and hit the shots this afternoon.

"Yes, we are 5-3 behind, but our pairings for tomorrow morning are strong. We will see what happens."

Watson, though, when pressed further about the Spieth/Reed decision, appeared to contradict himself, having earlier spoken of "feeling strongly" about the move. "You are never fully convinced about these decisions - because you never know how it is going to go."

Rather cruelly, when the US captain was then asked if he had been "out-coached", Watson paused before replying: "We were out-played. I give Europe credit for that."

If you admire Tom Watson, then much of this interrogation last night was pretty galling to take in. Yet his detractors, in the context of this Ryder Cup, persist.

A number of cynics say Watson is grand at making speeches - sometimes ramblingly so - but has been out of touch with Ryder Cups of the last 20 years, having not attended any of them since 1993.

They say he is disconnected with his young players, some of whom weren't born when he enjoyed his glory days. Watson himself has joked that the Spieths of this world know him as "that old guy".

To anyone of substance in golf all this is pretty disrespectful to Watson. He is a giant of the game and that can never be erased. But what is intriguing about the US captain at Gleneagles is this: he needs this Ryder Cup victory as much as any, in part to confirm to the younger generations what "that old guy" is all about.

In truth, if the Masters doesn't really start until the back nine on Sunday, then maybe the Ryder Cup really doesn't start, either, until Sunday's singles are under way. That said, yesterday was both good and bad for Watson - and McGinley must have felt the happier of the two captains last night.

Watson seemed richly vindicated in one regard. His boldness in the morning in going with his two rookies, Spieth and Reed, a pairing that had raised quite a few eyebrows, was rewarded with their morning beating of Gallacher and Poulter.

The two young Americans, in winning 5 and 4, made a misery of Gallacher and a mockery of Poulter's standing as a rock of the European cause. It was one decision that Watson called right, even adding the caveat that Gallacher and Poulter appeared to capitulate.

But much of that appeared to be undone with what would unfold after lunch. "They were very upset with me for not playing them in the afternoon," said Watson. "But I said to them, 'you're going to be mad at me, but you'll be playing tomorrow'."

In truth, no-one has quite worked out the secret of being a successful Ryder Cup captain. The players' performances on the day is surely 90 percent of a captain's reputation and ability. "Once the players go out to play, there is not a lot a Ryder Cup captain can do," said Bernard Gallacher, three-times a European captain.

Gallacher has described Watson's appointment by the PGA of America as "one of the cleverest things I've ever seen in golf." The proof of that view, of course, will be judged over this very weekend in Perthshire.

Watson finished last night by seeking to find a positive edge to a very uncomfortable closing of day one for him.

"Today was disappointing," he said. "The players are disappointed. I'm disappointed with the results, but I'm not certainly disappointed with the attitude of my team. This is not a sprint, it's a marathon. Let's see what tomorrow brings."