Rickie Fowler may be one of Phil Mickelson’s proteges but that didn’t stop the colorful 25-year-old from indirectly criticizing his mentor for publicly bashing Tom Watson after the U.S. Ryder Cup team’s decisive loss to Europe in September.
Rickie Fowler takes subtle swings at Phil Mickelson, slow play in China
Rickie Fowler becomes the latest to weigh in on the Americans’ devastating Ryder Cup loss, defending captain Tom Watson for doing a ‘great job’ and taking Phil Mickelson to task for calling Watson out.
David Cannon
A regular among Lefty’s high-rolling practice-round playing partners and in the field at the slow-moving WGC-HSBC Champions event last week in China, Fowler defended Watson’s captaincy by saying the “legend” did a “great job.”
“The part that is the unfortunate part, I feel like, is stuff that I feel like happens in the team room, that’s said to the team behind closed doors, should stay there,” Fowler told reporters on Saturday from Sheshan International GC. “I thought Tom did a great job of talking to the guys. He’s been there plenty of times, I enjoyed the time I got to spend with him. I respect him, he is a legend within the game.”
“Some things may have got blown a little bit out of proportion,” added Fowler, who is part of the 11-person task force the PGA of America formed to determine how to win the next match on home turf at Hazeltine in 2016. “But obviously we didn’t play as well as we needed to in order to win.”
Ryder Cup Woes
Fowler was also one of several players unhappy with the lackadaisical pace of play on Saturday at the HSBC.
“Yeah, it was too long,” Fowler told AFP.
“I’m not sure what it was. The first two days didn’t take as long. We didn’t have as many waits,” Fowler said about what early leader Graeme McDowell and his playing partner, Ian Poulter, complained were 5.5-hour rounds. “Today was a bit cooler and the rough did play tough with the rain and the moisture. I guess it just shows you what a little bit of weather conditions can do.”
GMac and Poulter were less charitable in their assessments of the time they spent on the Shanghai track.
“Ridiculous,” McDowell told AFP after wrapping things up at 4:30 p.m. after teeing off at 10:50 a.m.
“There’s no excuses. We need to be pressing and making sure people are keeping up to pace,” Poulter opined. “Five and a half hours is too long to play golf. End of story.”
As for the much-criticized panel he will sit on with 44-year-old Mickelson and Tiger Woods, 38, among others, Fowler was boffo about the chance to fix what’s broken on the U.S. side of things.
“I’m obviously part of the task force and looking forward to getting together with the guys and everyone that’s involved and see what everyone has to say,” he said. “It sucks losing. Everyone’s aware of that and everyone wants to win.”
