NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. — Jim Furyk’s wants to do more than just win next year’s Ryder Cup.
His goal as the U.S. Ryder Cup captain is to not only get an elusive road victory next year in Ireland but also build for the future by creating a better plan that emphasizes the competition on an annual basis.
Furyk, who was recently named to the post for a second time—he lost as captain in 2018 in Paris but won as U.S. Presidents Cup captain in 2024 in Montreal—acknowledged that mistakes have been made and that he brings experience and ideas to the process.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Furyk said of trying to win an away match for the first time since 1993 during his news conference at Aronimink Golf Club, site of this week’s PGA Championship. “We have to scratch and claw, but I think we have the talent to be able to do that.
“Then I really look at it from a long-term perspective, and something we really need to improve on and get better at. I like to say we need to create a blueprint. We need to create more continuity for our players and for our future captains.
“And we really need to start making the Ryder Cup more of a priority each and every year, year in and year out, and focus on growing and evolving into the future. So that’s something that I really take seriously, and I think it’s at the top of the list.”
Furyk, who was made available in a news conference for the first time since accepting the job, acknowledged there was a blueprint in place following a loss to Europe in 2014 that saw the formation of a Ryder Cup task force and a plan that created continuity between Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup captains and assistants.
That seemed to go awry two years ago when Tiger Woods delayed his decision on taking the captaincy before ultimately turning it down. The PGA of America then pivoted to Keegan Bradley, who had not been part of a team in more than 10 years and had never served as an assistant.
Furyk, a 56-year-old 17-time PGA Tour winner, was an assistant for Bradley at last year’s loss at Bethpage and has been part of every Ryder Cup going back to his first as a player in 1997.
“I think we could have put Keegan in a much better position last year, and part of my role as a vice captain was to kind of help him along with the experience that I had,” Furyk said. “But I think that ‘continuity’ is probably the best word I could use.”
Furyk pointed to the U.S.’s poor record in foursomes over the last two Ryder Cups and a Presidents Cup as areas that need exploration and thought.
The Americans went 2–6 in foursomes (alternate shot) at Bethpage and 1–7 at Marco Simone at the 2023 Ryder Cup. Even at the Presidents Cup, the U.S. went 0–5 on the second-day foursomes and then went 3–1 the next day. That total is a glaring 6–19 overall.
“There’s a lot of different things we can talk about that with I think we can grow and get better at—our logistics, our travel, our schedule,” Furyk said. “We can get into our pairings. It’s no secret that foursomes has been a glaring problem. Our team play the last two Ryder Cups on Friday and Saturday, we’ve dug massive holes. But foursomes is the glaring problem.
“I think there’s a lot of stones to be unturned, our analytics, and just how we grow and how we evolve in all those areas. As soon as Bethpage kind of ended, I really started taking a lot of notes and writing things down and moving forward.”
Jim Furyk did not lobby for the captaincy, but was hoping for a call
Furyk said he did not lobby for the job that was again Woods’s to take or leave.
But a few weeks prior to the Masters, the 15-time major champion was involved in a vehicle incident near his Florida home that saw him arrested on suspicion of DUI. Afterward, he withdrew his name from Ryder Cup consideration.
Furyk said he was first approached about the job the week prior to the Masters.
“I felt my experience and knowledge could be of huge help,” he said. “I was approached—I’ll be honest, I was hoping I’d be approached, but I was approached the week before the Masters.”
Furyk said the same system of six automatic qualifiers and six at-large picks will be used but a points formula has yet to be determined.
In past years, players have earned Ryder Cup points in non-Ryder Cup years at the major championships, something Furyk said could still be applied retroactively.
“We go from the Presidents Cup to the Ryder Cup each and every year, and what I started noticing is we were maybe losing a little continuity from year to year,” he said.
“So I just think we could be better at this is a 12-month process each and every year. It’s not something the Ryder Cup is over. We decompress. We let it go for six months. And now we hire and we bring in—we brought Keegan in even later than this last year. He had less than 18 months to prepare. And that’s a guy who never even served as vice captain. So he played a lot of catch-up.
“The idea of more continuity, more continuity for future captains, more continuity for the players year in and year out, and that includes Presidents Cup in my mind as well. We’ve been carrying that knowledge along under some great captains, under the Davis Loves and the Freddie Couples and the Steve Strickers, and then myself kind of working with those guys. We’ve been kind of passing that information along, but I just really feel like it could be in a more organized manner.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Jim Furyk Wants to Fix the Mistakes That Haunt the U.S. Ryder Cup Team.
