Recriminations among the losing US Ryder Team have already begun, with Phil Mickelson appearing to heavily criticise the approach taken by their captain, Tom Watson.
Speaking after Europe’s 16.5-11.5 victory, Mickelson said the USA had moved away from a formula that had helped them win at Valhalla in 2008.
"We had a great formula in '08 and I don't know why we have strayed from it," American left-hander Mickelson, a veteran of 10 Ryder Cups, told Golf Channel.
"I don't know why we don't ever try going back to it. What Zinger [Paul Azinger] did was really a good format and maybe we ought to relive something like that."
"The other thing that Paul [Azinger] did really well was he had a great game plan" - Phil Mickelson
Watson was widely panned for his decision to rest in-form rookies Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth from the opening foursomes and Phil Mickelson felt the team missed a trick by not trying to replicate their winning recipe from 2008.
Six years ago, Azinger's imaginative captaincy paved the way for a first US Ryder Cup victory since 1999 after he revamped the selection process to give him the hottest players and switched the opening Cup session from fourballs to foursomes.
However, his most successful ploy was implementing a 'pod' system whereby his team was split into four groups of three players who gelled superbly that week at Valhalla after practising and playing together.
Mickelson touched upon the effectiveness of the pod system in comments during a press conference following the event on Sunday, in comments which will be construed as strong criticism of Watson’s approach.
“[Azinger] got everybody invested in the process,” he said. “He got everybody invested in they going to play with, who the picks were going be in their pod, when they would play, and they had a great leader for each pod.”
Mickelson said that players in 2008 had more of a say in player selection, and that this allowed them to be “invested in the process”.
He also said that Azinger had had a gameplan, which had helped the team.
"The other thing that Paul did really well was he had a great game plan for us; how we were going to go about doing this, how we were going to go about playing together, if so-and-so is playing well, if so-and-so is not playing well - we had a real game plan.
"Those two things helped us bring out our best golf. We use that same process in the Presidents Cup and we do really well.
"Unfortunately we have strayed from a winning formula in 2008 for the last three Ryder Cups and we need to consider maybe getting back to that formula that helped us play our best."
Mickelson was asked whether he thought his comments were disloyal to Watson.
"Oh, I'm sorry you're taking it that way. I'm just talking about what Paul Azinger did to help us play our best," was the response.
"You asked me what I thought we should do to bring our best golf out and I'd go back to when we played our best golf and try to replicate that formula."
Asked whether he was consulted in any of the decision-making Mickelson added: "No, nobody here was in any decision."
"The bottom line is the Europeans kicked our butts. They were better players this week" - Tom Watson
Watson, who was also captain when the US last won the Ryder Cup on foreign soil in 1993, singled out the woeful display by the Americans in the foursomes as the decisive factor this week at Gleneagles.
"The combined scores for our team in foursomes were really, really high compared to theirs," the 65-year-old told NBC Sports. "That was the biggest difference in the play this week.
"We gave them a shot here in the singles. We made them [Europe] think about us early on in the singles and then they turned it on. But the foursomes play is what separated the two teams."
Watson stood by his decision and brushed aside Mickelson's comments.
"He has a difference of opinion,” he said. “That's okay. My management philosophy is different than his."
Watson said he had not read Azinger's book about a winning Ryder Cup strategy.
"I didn't discount it. I just had a different philosophy right off the bat," he said. "I felt that the assessment of the players was paramount from the standpoint of my vice-captains and me to see who was going to play with whom.
"My two jobs are to make the captain's picks and then put the team together.
"The bottom line is the Europeans kicked our butts. They were better players this week."
