Gainesville, Va. – For all the dumbfounded looks it produced in the media center when U.S. captain Hal Sutton announced it on the eve of last year’s Ryder Cup matches, Phil Mickelson expected big things from the pairing with Tiger Woods.
“I really thought we were going to play well together,” Mickelson said Wednesday.
“I thought they were just going to go out and kill ’em,” said teammate Kenny Perry. “That was my first impression. I said, ‘Well, there’s a point.”‘
Instead, Sutton’s “super-pairing” bombed worse than a comic without timing. Appearing uncomfortable and playing similarly, Mickelson and Woods lost both first-day matches to the Europeans, who found unexpected momentum and eventually routed the Americans.
“When they got beat and kept getting beat,” Perry said, “I think it just kind of went through the whole team … and then it just snowballed.”
There will be no repeat today at the Presidents Cup event, as the U.S. goes out with Woods playing the opening foursomes match with Fred Couples as his partner (against South Africa’s Retief Goosen and Adam Scott of Australia), largely because they asked captain Jack Nicklaus to make it happen, sensing an ideal chemistry.
