Phil Mickelson may have taken a back stool at the coronation of Davis Love III as the captain of the 2016 U.S. Ryder Cup team, but ousted PGA of America president Ted Bishop claimed the seating arrangement was a ruse.
Ted Bishop calls Phil Mickelson the puppet master of the U.S. Ryder Cup team
Ted Bishop may have left the presidency of the PGA of America in disgrace, but he remains an opinion-maker. In a wide-ranging column, he says Mickelson’s fingerprints are all over U.S. Ryder Cup dealings.
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Love is getting another crack at the captaincy, but his selection and everything else involving the Americans in the biennial event now and into the foreseeable future is all Mickelson’s doing, Bishop wrote for Golf.com.
“The real boss of the U.S. Ryder Cup team is Phil Mickelson,” typed Bishop. “Phil presided over the press conference like a hawk surveying his prey.”
Few would question that what Bishop dubbed Mickelson’s “passive-aggressive takedown” of 2014 captain Tom Watson (Bishop’s hand-picked choice who went down in flames at Gleneagles last year), sparked a firestorm of second-guessing, hand-wringing, and navel-gazing on the part of the Americans after their 16.5-11.5 drubbing in Scotland.
So it’s not surprising that Lefty played a significant role in the PGA’s task force (a Bishop brainstorm, he said), and the naming of Love and future captains.
Though reports indicated that Love was a unanimous choice of task force members (who included Tiger Woods, surprisingly truant from the presser, according to the former PGA head), Bishop refuted that notion. A majority of the eight players and past captains favored Fred Couples and that another early frontrunner, Paul Azinger, had some support as well.
Mickelson confessed to Bishop that, while he “loved Azinger’s system” (the pod approach Phil touted in that awkward post-Gleneagles press conference), he “was not a fan of his leadership style.”
Bishop wholeheartedly, if obliquely, agreed.
“I’ve had my own experiences with Azinger, so I understood where Phil was coming from,” Bishop noted, taking a page from Mickelson’s passive-aggressive notebook. “Paul is a unique character -- he has strong opinions and can sometimes be abrasive.”
Burn!
Mickelson, Bishop continued, was the driving force behind a revamped points system. Phil and other top players regularly skip the tour’s Fall Series, so Bishop was not surprised that such events will no longer count toward Ryder Cup eligibility. Instead, golfers will compile points in the limited-field WGC tourneys and Players Championship.
Bishop, one of the first to leak the news that Love would get a second stint at the helm, offered the names of future U.S. captains. According to the outspoken pro from Indiana, there will be:
- Couples in 2018 after assisting Love at Hazeltine
- Steve Stricker moving from Couple’s assistant to captain in 2020 at Whistling Straits
- Jim Furyk in 2022
- and Mickelson receiving the honor in 2022 at Bethpage Black
Sources say Davis Love next US Ryder Cup Captain. #DoOver Bet Freddie wishes he had do over at Medinah. My $$ was on Couples, but luv DL3.
— Ted Bishop (@tedbishop38pga) February 16, 2015 “He’s been lobbying behind the scenes for the job (and the venue),” Bishop said, “and I have no reason to believe that he won’t get it.”
Bishop also threw out a tantalizing bit of gossip when he wondered about Woods’ absence from the proceedings, which took place in close proximity to his Jupiter, Fla., home. Though acknowledging that Tiger “is dealing with more serious concerns than the Ryder Cup,” Bishop said he was “surprised more folks aren’t talking about his no-show.”
Bishop posited that perhaps Mickelson, notorious for making himself the story during his not quite two-year tenure as PGA prez, taking control of the U.S. Ryder Cup developments “might represent the first time in years that (Mickelson) isn’t living in Tiger’s shadow.”
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