Phil Mickelson’s got Ryder Cup opinions, and he’s not afraid to share them.
Lefty, who was part of the U.S. Team’s disastrous loss to Europe, said he would never again play a course like Le Golf National, where the event was held, and that it was a “waste of my time.”
“I’m 48. I’m not going to play tournaments with rough like that anymore,” Mickelson told Golf Monthly on Thursday after the first round of the Safeway Open. “It’s a waste of my time. I’m going to play courses that are playable, and I can play aggressive, attacking, make lots of birdies, [the] type of golf I like to play.”
The complaints from Mickelson, who was playing in his 12th straight Ryder Cup, could be considered ironic after he was singled out as a poster child for the poor course setup in 2016, when the event took place in the U.S.
Before this year’s Cup, Thomas Pieters, who was on the Euro squad in 2016, cited the Hazeltine setup as ridiculous.
“You could hit it anywhere,” Pieters said. “[Mickelson] was sometimes hitting it, like, six fairways left or right but was still able to get it on the green and then make a 40-footer.”
Safe to say Mickelson would have preferred a setup like that this time around.
“The fairways were 14 to 16 yards wide,” Mickelson said. “The fact is they had brutal rough, almost unplayable, and that’s not the way I play. I don’t play like that.”
But while Mickelson was full of gripes with the course, he had no problem with his team, despite the U.S.’ brutal 17.5-10.5 loss.
Reports abound of infighting and squabbling and one player just being “full of s—t,” but Mickelson said he didn’t see anything like that.
“We had one of the best weeks, as far as teammates and working together,” Mickelson said. “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t see any of that stuff happen. I only saw one of the best weeks and team unity that we’ve had in a long time.”
So let’s remember that the next time we reflect on the 2018 Ryder Cup. It wasn’t Jim Furyk’s pairings, Patrick Reed’s complaining or Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka being at each other’s throats that cost the U.S. The course was just unplayable – except apparently for the Europeans.
