CHASKA, Minn. — The wind was gusting at more than 30 miles per hour when the United States team showed up at Hazeltine National Golf Club on Monday for its first practices of the Ryder Cup week. Some people might have seen the blustery conditions as symbolic of the difficulties the Americans face in trying to regain their footing in a competition whose outcome in recent years has tilted toward the Europeans.
Not Phil Mickelson. After assessing the conditions, he called an audible and recommended that his teammates replace on-course work with mental imagery.
“On a day like that,” Mickelson explained Wednesday, “why would you see bad when you can visualize good?