There have been a lot of nonsensical haverings uttered down the years.

I mean, the person who first trotted out the phrase "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" was talking complete cobblers. My neighbour's lawn is a ruddy disgrace.

Here at Gleneagles during Ryder Cup week, we've had an endless stream of blethers and banter, musings and mutterings. There's also been a fair bit of groaning and grumbling too. As Europe popped the corks and toasted their champagne golf at the conclusion of their 16½-11½ victory over the USA on Sunday night, the downbeat dudes from the other side of the Atlantic were raking over the debris of yet another dispiriting defeat.

And then Phil Mickelson lobbed in something of a grenade. His grim assessment of Tom Watson's captaincy certainly livened up the US post mortem and gave us salivating scribblers something juicy to get our teeth into.

Uncomfortable? The whole palaver was about as pleasant as sliding down a splintered banister in the scuddy.

Poor old Tom sat there, with a kind of awkward expression that was part grimace, part smiling resignation, part teeth-clenching fury, as Mickelson delivered a gushing appraisal of Paul Azinger's successful time at the US helm in 2008.

You could say it was fair enough. Big Phil was asked a question and he answered it. In a stage-managed sporting world where carefully constructed, inoffensive soundbites are spewed out in churning abundance, Mickelson at least gave his honest opinion of affairs. In the circumstances, however, it was not the environment for such scrutiny and the airing of dirty linen lacked class. Mickelson, sitting a few seats away from Watson, never actually criticised his skipper by name but his feelings were clear for all to see. It was what you might call an American civil war of words. There wasn't much civility, of course.

By the end of this frosty reception, both men came out of it looking bad. Mickelson's bitter condemnations of his captain had a good whiff of sour grapes about it, after he sat out of Saturday's play for the first time in a Ryder Cup career that stretches almost 20 years. Watson's increasing stubbornness, meanwhile, made the 65-year-old look out of touch with those around him.

Watson tried to brush it all off as a "difference of opinion" but, make no mistake, Mickelson had humiliated him. At least Mickelson didn't nip round behind him and pull his trousers down in public. He may as well have done, though.

Watching Watson, this golfing great, squirm as Mickelson calmly and coldly stuck the knife in and twisted it was an excruciating spectacle and a sad end to a tenure that had captured the imaginations of the golfing world with its air of dewy-eyed nostalgia. The reality was harsh and ended in acrimony.

Bernard Gallacher, who has experienced the fluctuating fortunes of the Ryder Cup captaincy, certainly had sympathy for Watson and questioned the time and the place of Mickelson's deconstruction. "It was the wrong moment to start a debrief," said Gallacher, who went head-to-head with Watson the last time the Kansas veteran was US captain in 1993.

"Nothing really works in the heat of the moment. They're all looking around to blame somebody and I think Phil will regret it in a few days. At the end of the day, the players weren't good enough. That showed in the foursomes, when they lost both sessions heavily - and lost the Ryder Cup. Everybody wants to pull apart every decision when you're a losing captain, I know all about that. But the Americans lost it on the course. The players lost it, simple as that."

Watson was coming from the old-school and, as Gallacher said: "Tom can't understand why his team just don't go out and play."

All the talk about Azinger's 'pod system' clearly irked Watson and Mickelson should perhaps remember that, without these 'pods', the USA took a 10-6 lead into the last day of the 2012 match at Medinah under the captaincy of Davis Love III. Even then, they still managed to lose.

The Watson experiment in 2014 failed but the perception of him, as a cherished figure who has provided the game with many of its finest moments, should not be sullied. The stains from this stooshie will cling stubbornly to Mickelson. At some point in the next decade, there is a good chance he will become a Ryder Cup captain himself. Perhaps his words the other night will come back to haunt him one of these days.