GLENEAGLES, Scotland — What happens in the team room stays in the team room. A notable exception occurred Sunday after the United States had lost another Ryder Cup to Europe, its eighth defeat in the last 10 meetings, 16 ½-11 ½.

Tom Watson, the last United States captain to experience success on foreign soil, in 1993, and also the latest to suffer defeat, sat in the middle of the dais, flanked by his 12 players. Five players sat between Watson and Phil Mickelson, a 10-time participant in the biennial event, who made himself comfortable at the far right side of the table.

The positioning was symbolic. Presumably Watson’s right-hand man, Mickelson decidedly was not. After being benched for both sessions Saturday, the first time he had sat out an entire day of the competition, Mickelson had a lot of time — maybe too much — to ponder what had gone wrong.

Watson, 65, had come across all week as estranged from his team, and as he joined his players for the final time, just how great the divide was became painfully clear. The airing of the team-room toxins started innocently enough, with a question posed to Mickelson, who had been on the last victorious American team, in 2008.