Fred Couples: It's Time for America to Get on 'Couples for Captain' Bandwagon

Whether Phil Mickelson meant to or not, he threw Fred Couples' visor into the captain's race with his post-event comments after the recent Ryder Cup. Mickelson talked about the captaincy of Fred Couples at the Presidents Cup and Paul Azinger at the Ryder Cup, mentioning what they did and how they treated the team.  

Mickelson applauded them both, but as many golf fans agree, there's just something about Freddie. 

"We all do the best that we can and we're all trying our hardest, and I'm just looking back at what gave us the most success," Mickelson said. 

He cited the example of Azinger getting players invested in the process and added having a game plan was important in the 2008 Ryder Cup. 

"We use that same process in The Presidents Cup and we do really well," Mickelson continued without saying Couples' name. Everyone knew who he was talking about. "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." 

When he was a guest on the Fred Couples XM Radio program, Keegan Bradley dropped all pretense and just became a Freddie Fan, without the analysis.   

"We need Fred Couples, if the PGA of America is listening, we need Fred Couples," Bradley almost begged. "We need him in the team room." 

Maybe it's time America got on the "Couples for Ryder Cup" bandwagon. Athletes just don't say that kind of thing unless they are wanting someone like LeBron James on their basketball team. Besides, as a captain, Couples is never going to hit a shot, which makes it more of an oddity. 

"Freddie brings out the best in us," Bradley continued, cheerleading pompoms fully engaged. "We need Freddie Boom-Boom bad!" 

You'd swear it was a man crush, and maybe it is. Couples, after all, has always been a male version of Greta Garbo and Marilyn Monroe, and, like Tiger Woods, has always had more attention than anyone wants. Before Tiger Woods, Couples was the "it guy" of golf, and all the time he just wanted a little tranquility and maybe a green jacket.  

While Couples has spent a good portion of his life trying to avoid crowds, dinners, speaking in public and generally being the guy in charge, even he confessed, after being head of the Presidents Cup team for the first time in 2009, that he liked it.  

"Would I do it again? Hell, yeah, I would do it again," he said. "It was the week of my—way better than any golf tournament, ever. It was that much fun." He was so good, he got two more shots.  

However, as easy as Couples seems to make captaining look, like a duck paddling under the water or Michael Phelps swimming butterfly, he's working—but makes it look effortless, like his golf swing. 

So, what is the Couples' secret to shepherding 12 already-successful, totally different, high-strung athletes? Mainly he knows what it's like when the spotlight is on, when cameras are in your face and when people always want you to do something and go somewhere. So you can be sure that, while Couples never said it, his No. 1 goal as a captain was to make sure all his guys didn't have those problems.  

Couples as a captain would not have had a lot of big dinners, not because of the food, but because of the fuss. 

Couples likes sports. In 2009, he knew the best golfer in the world at the time, Tiger Woods, was friends with a great athlete, Michael Jordan. So Couples asked Michael Jordan to be an assistant captain.  

Couples is a little sentimental, which probably surprises people. He asked, Steve Dallas, a guy who helped him learn to play better golf when he was a youngster, to be a part of the squad.   

When it comes to team clothing, we can't forget that along with John Cook, Couples transformed the look of golf in the 1980s. But even he took a back seat to one star in the wardrobe department. 

"(With)Tiger Woods, you put red shirts on Sunday," he said talking about his first captaincy in fashion. "I like tan and white, we did that one day. I like gray, we did that. I don't know what the detail is." 

Mickelson thought otherwise. 

"We were talking earlier about how impressed we were with the job that he did. He just seemed to be on top of everything, from even details, which isn't, you know, his personality," Mickelson said after the 2009 victory. That got a laugh from everyone, including Tiger Woods.

"He was on top of who was playing well, how he wanted to match up pairings, how he wanted them to play. I thought he and Jay and Michael did a great job of staying on top of everything and allowing us to play our best."  

"I never put a walkie-talkie in my hand and never had a headset on," Couples said, downplaying his role. "It was fun to watch people hit the ball, even on their team. They were magnificent, too. I only paid attention to my guys, and it's a different game when you're watching." 

Couples' real secret was that he did what any good executive does. He delegated things he was perhaps not great at doing. 

"I feel like Joe Torre. Love my players," he said about the 2013 Presidents Cup team. "I feel like I'm not going to dot every I and cross every T perfectly. That's why I have Jay and Davis."

There's no secret to the pairings in the world of Captain Couples. 

"As far as worrying about the pairings, the pairings fall into place pretty easy. They tell me who they want to play with, and I go with that." 

The way Couples does things, it looks easy. But there's always more to it, as a comment hidden in the post-victory press conference in 2009 hinted. 

Saturday night of the event he didn't get much sleep. 

"I woke up at about 3:30 and for three hours, all I did was think, how are we going to do this, and how are we going to do that. That's the only night of the whole week where I worried about anything," he admitted, adding that he didn't know why because pairing the players, he thought, had been easy.  

"Basically these guys played golf and did it all. I would like to say that I didn't have a whole lot to do with it, that's for sure," he said. 

The players will tell everyone differently. Omitted from the actual words in the 2009 transcript, which was the first time Couples had been a captain, was the part where he got a little choked up. 

"I knew this was going to happen. I just didn't think it would be that overpowering. It was such a blast," and with then, after brushing back tears, he recovered his composure, as he always does. 

The real reason Couples is a success is that he brings a skill set of intangibles that can't easily be taught. While Paul Azinger had to explore Navy Seal training, Couples went another way. Couples is a feel player in golf, and he's a feel player with people. Turns out he's great as a people person when he's a captain, at least according to the players who have been on his teams. He seems to have an ability to anticipate what people will do or want to do and what his players need that minute. You can't ask for more. 

And about the recent controversy in Ryder Cup, Couples recently said on his radio program that he did not want to make too many comments because, "hopefully, someday I get a call to see (if) maybe I can be a Ryder Cup captain." 

If Keegan Bradley could get his wish, the call would come tomorrow.

Kathy Bissell is a Golf Writer for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand or from official interview materials from the USGA, PGA Tour, R&A or PGA of America. She wrote Fred Couples: Golf's Reluctant Superstar, an authorized biography