ATLANTA — Phil Mickelson never matched par in his four rounds and finished last in the 30-man field at the Tour Championship, a final tuneup for the Ryder Cup next week in France.
In fact, four U.S. Ryder Cup team members — Mickelson, Bubba Watson, Patrick Reed and Brooks Koepka — were at the bottom of the leaderboard.
Mickelson, 48, who has won the Tour Championship twice, shot a final-round 72 and completed 72 holes at 293, 13 over par. He had a 76 on Saturday.
“It’s obviously not the week I would like heading into any big tournament,” Mickelson said. “But next week is totally different. Different grass, different course, different everything. So we’ll see.”
Mickelson had a poor Tour Championship two years ago, finishing tied for 22nd the week before the Ryder Cup, where he was among the top U.S. players with a 2-1-1 record including a Sunday singles tie against Sergio Garcia in which he made 10 birdies.
One of captain Jim Furyk’s four at-large picks, Mickelson has not posted a top-10 finish since May, but is viewed as one of the team leaders. He will be making his 12th consecutive U.S. Ryder Cup appearance.
Furyk may be more concerned about the play of Reed and Watson. Reed also failed to match par in any of the four rounds and has just a single top-10 worldwide finish since coming in fourth at the U.S. Open.
Watson shot even-par on Thursday but played the final three rounds in 10 over. He has missed three cuts since winning the Travelers Championship in June.
Only Jordan Spieth was missing from the 12-member U.S. team at the Tour Championship. The entire U.S. contingent, including vice captains, caddies and spouses, was expected to leave from Atlanta late Sunday night. The first practice rounds at Le National Golf are scheduled for Tuesday morning.