An Awphil Decision

Lanny Wadkins may not have been the worst Ryder Cup captain ever, and he certainly wasn't the dumbest (Hal Sutton, call your office), but I'll credit him with the worst Captain's Pick of all time:

Curtis Strange was one of the more controversial captain's picks in Ryder Cup history, a selection made by USA skipper Wadkins. Wadkins wanted Strange's experience and leadership on the team. But Strange hadn't won a PGA Tour event in six years. 

Strange's last win was the 1989 U.S. Open, his second straight. At the 1988 U.S. Open, Strange won by beating Faldo in an 18-hole playoff. Strange's opponent in singles at this Ryder Cup? Faldo. Strange was 1-up with three holes to play, but finished bogey-bogey-bogey to give Faldo the 1-up victory. It was a key point for Europe, which had begun the final day two points behind, but finished it one point in front.

My memory informs that the logic of Lanny's pick was that that 1989 Open was won at Oak Hill, and Lanny intuited that Curtis' success there would benefit him in the Ryder Cup six years later.  As if... perhaps no one told Lanny that the Ryder Cup is a match play event...

Curtis rewarded Lanny by posting an 0-3-0 record in that Ryder Cup, including coughing up that late lead referenced earlier.  As my memory tells the tale, Faldo hit such a bad drive on the last hole that he had to chip out, yet even with Curtis in the fairway the viewer knew that Faldo was the more likely of the two to make a four.

Which brings us to the present circumstances...yesterday's post on the Pre Cup nailed three out of four captain's picks, but I didn't see this one coming:

Captain Haas chose his son, Bill Haas, who was 11th on the points list and an obvious

choice, no controversy there. His second pick is the one everyone will be talking about—Phil Mickelson. 

Mickelson had played the last 10 Presidents Cups, but since a runner-up finish at the Masters in April his game has been spotty at best. Mickelson’s selection was a bit of a surprise, especially given his critical and disruptive comments at the Ryder Cup’s closing press conference last year.

First, some begrudging respect to Jay Haas....I guessed that he'd go with the next two on the points list as a way of diffusing any criticism over picking his spawn.  But Noooooooo, he's much cleverer than that...he picked a man so manifestly unqualified for the team that no one cares about picking his son.  Well played, Sir!

Here's what passes for justification:

“If anyone deserves a pick, it’s Phil Mickelson,” Jay Haas said. “The guys on the team trust him and they were adamant that Phil is the guy. Among the vice captains and the guys on the team, he was an overwhelming pick.”

 I didn't realize that Bones is a vice captain...but don't let this dissuade you from the fact that he "deserved" the pick:

Mickelson managed only three top-10 finishes this year, the last of which was a tie for third at Memphis in June.

Since then, Mickelson played six events and finished better than 50th twice—20th at the British Open and 18th at the PGA. Mickelson was 50th at the Barclay’s and 64th at the Deutsche Bank Championship the last two weeks, when he posted a combined score of 4-over par.

But how priceless is this 'graph:

“You can go down the list of Phil’s accomplishments,” Haas said. “On the course, he can bring it. You can’t replace the camaraderie and experience that he brings. Unless you’ve been in the team room with him, you can’t understand what having him around means. He is so ultra-confident and positive. Someone mentioned he went 0-for-5 in South Africa. He never changed one time, he never moped or complained. He was positive from the time he got up until the time he finished the week. Phil got tremendous support across the board.

If you want someone that can go 0-5 and remain delusionally upbeat, I'll grant that Phil is your man.  And you know who else was great in the team room?  That Curtis guy....

But last I looked it's a golf competition, an art form at which Phil has kinda sucked the last few years.

To me it's comical that they don't even make the case for Phil, which is that he still makes a ton of birdies and therefore should be a good fourball player.  Secondly, the recent tweak to the match format makes the pick more...err, let's just go with less bad:

The total number of matches will be reduced from 34 to 30, which remains slightly higher than the 28 matches contested at the Ryder Cup. While in previous years there were six four-ball and six foursomes matches across the first two days of the Presidents Cup - meaning each player on the 12-man rosters had to play both days - there will now be five matches per day. Saturday's schedule will include four four-ball and four foursomes matches, as opposed to five matches per session, followed by 12 singles matches on Sunday.

Translation:  You can hide Phil in both sets of foursomes matches, where Rickie will be quite relived to not have to play Phil's tee shot.

Lastly, at his current ranking of 61st in the FedEx points, he's unlikely to play at East Lake and will therefore be well-rested for the Prez Cup.  I know, but at age 45 with psoriatic arthritis, that's not nothing...

As Counselor for the Defense, Alex Myers posts at The Loop to justify Haas' two picks.  I don't have the slightest quibble with the obvious pick of Bill Haas, but this is the sum and substance of his argument in favor of Phil:

Haas' pick of Mickelson, at least when assessing Phil's year on its own, was a bit more of a reach. Mickelson hasn't won in two years, and hasn't had a top 10 since June. But he has been part of every U.S. team in the Ryder and Presidents Cup since 1994, always qualifying on points until this year. This Presidents Cup will be Mickelson's 11th, which is more experience than players 11 through 29 on the points list combined.

We get it, he's old.... Alex is just back from his honeymoon and perhaps is too inclined to say Yes, Dear, instinctively....  Maybe it's the 4,000 years of cultural heritage, but where I come from that's not an argument you'd make at the dinner table, much less in print.

Jeff Babineau wasn't thrilled with the pick either:

Forgetting about the Gleneagles mutiny he helped to lead in one of the more bizarre post-event pressers of all time, Phil has been a model ambassador on Tour, the kind of guy who shows up to some city, smiles a bunch and signs as many autographs as any three other players combined.

Hey, wives are a big part of the team events, don’t forget, and in Amy Mickelson, Team USA gets a modern-day Barbara Nicklaus. Friendly, genuine, highly popular. The real deal.

But what does the U.S. get in adding Phil the player, the one who stands before us today at 45? Well … that’s the painful part, the part in which the needle screeches across the vinyl, and where everything grinds to an awkward halt. Sadly, performance-wise, elevating Mickelson onto the Presidents Cup team makes no real sense.

Since walking off the green with his fifth major – and first Claret Jug – in the summer of 2013, Mickelson has pretty much been an invisible man as a competitor. As much as he has tried to fire up the engine the last two years, losing weight, getting fit, pounding balls … the motor just hasn’t turned over. He hasn’t won in 26 months. That’s quite a spell. In 39 starts over two seasons, he has contended two times, albeit in majors.

We couldn't get through this rant without referencing that Gleneagles hissy fit, could we?  He's great in the team room, but he'll stick a shiv in you in public.  Watch your back, Jay, especially if he's not on the same page with you as to when he plays.

 But also remember all the Ryder Cup Task Force happy talk?  How we were going to coordinate the two cups to ensure that we fielded the best team possible at Hazeltine and beyond?  So, dear reader, are we better off next year with Phil on the team or with someone younger?

The President's Cup has no doubt disappointed Commissioner Ratched, who I imagine envisioned an event that would rival the Ryder Cup, forgetting the decades in which the RC was a snooze-fest.  I actually think it's fine, as long as you treat it as one nice group of gents from Orlando taking on another equally nice group of gents (we can say that now that Robert Allenby isn't on the team) from that same central Florida location.  The key is that it's a fun format and that they sometimes take it to interesting venues, i.e., Royal Melbourne, Royal Montreal and Muirfield Village.

That digression is necessary because one can't elide the possibility that Phil's selection was a ratings ploy to pump up the volume on an event with no buzz that will be played on a venue somewhere in the range of boring-to-dreadful with a challenging, heart-of-darkness television schedule. How pleadest thou, Commissioner Ratched?