Mickelson disses another former Ryder Cup captain

CHASKA, Minn. — From the sound of his riff on Wednesday, it seems as if Phil Mickelson has been waiting 12 years to set the record straight about one of his worst Ryder Cup moments — when he and Tiger Woods were paired in a 2004 foursomes match and lost to Lee Westwood and Darren Clarke.

Mickelson’s target was the captain of that 2004 team, Hal Sutton. It marks the second time in as many Ryder Cups Mickelson has taken a captain to task. Two years ago, he was highly critical of Tom Watson after the U.S. was whipped by the Europeans in Scotland.

Mickelson’s reference to that ill-fated 2004 match, which was a pivotal moment in the U.S. loss to Europe at Oakland Hills, was in relation to comments he made about how much more prepared the U.S. team is under current captain Davis Love III. Sutton, Mickelson said, did not tell Mickelson and Woods they would be paired together until the last minute.

“It all starts with the captain,’’ Mickelson said Wednesday. “We were told two days before that we were playing together, and that gave us no time to work together and prepare.’’

Mickelson and Woods lost their four-ball (best-ball) match to Colin Montgomerie and Padraig Harrington, 2and-1, and later were defeated by Westwood and Clarke, 1-up, in a foursomes (alternate shot) match.

Mickelson took issue with not having time to prepare for the foursomes, which requires the players to use one ball. The style and composition of the golf ball is a big deal to professional golfers.

“[Woods] found out the year before when we played at the Presidents Cup in 2003 that the golf ball I was playing was not going to work for him,’’ Mickelson said. “He plays a very high-spin ball and I play a very low-spin ball, and we had to come up in two days with a solution.’’

The U.S. was smoked by Europe 18¹/2 -9¹/2 that year. Mickelson was 1-3 and Woods 2-3.

This year’s two captains took different tacks with their practice-round pairings. Love sent his U.S. players out in very similar groups to Tuesday’s — with Rickie Fowler, Jimmy Walker, Brooks Koepka and Mickelson together, followed by Dustin Johnson, Matt Kuchar, Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed, then J.B. Holmes, Zach Johnson, Ryan Moore and Brandt Snedeker. The only difference from Tuesday to Wednesday was Zach Johnson and Koepka swapping groups.

European captain Darren Clarke, however, changed his pairings, raising eyebrows that he was unsure of what he might do Friday. Tuesday, he had his six rookies paired with veterans. On Wednesday, he sent the rookies out to play against the veterans.