When Tiger Woods won the 2018 Tour Championship … was it Jim Furyk’s fault?
When PGA Tour schedulers — years ago — placed that Tour Championship on the eve of the 2018 Ryder Cup on another continent … was Furyk to blame?
When Bryson DeChambeau won two playoff games and sprinted to the top of the Twitter Golf Captain rankings … was it Furyk’s fault that he picked DeChambeau, who then couldn’t find a freeway in France?
And was it also Furyk’s fault that a 47-year-old who was essentially named to the Ryder Cup “task force” also wanted a win that year — and the path of least resistance was simply asking that 47-year-old (we’re talking Phil Mickelson) to be a veteran presence for your three rookies in a road match?
Oh, the things we choose to forget about a Ryder Cup from eight years ago!
And while we’re at it … there was Jim Furyk for it thank you to have the courage to pair Jordan Spieth with Justin Thomas for the first time? A duo that (1) wanted to play together, and (2) dominated their European opponents that year and again in 2021?
Did Furyk get any pointed praise when he eyed the fashion choices and stuck to the numbers, choosing Data Golf’s fourth-ranked player in the world as a no-nonsense captain? That would be Tony Finau, a rare bright spot in the 2018 Ryder Cup and definitely a smart selection. But how many people remember it?
They only remember that of Furyk others The captain’s picks barely made it to the 16th hole during their week in the French countryside. They only remember that the Thomas-Spieth pairing canceled Spieth’s partnership with Patrick Reed, and it so irked Reed that the Band-Aid of pairing with his idol, Tiger Woods, shocked Reed, a notoriously self-centered player. Reed took on New York Times that Sunday night and attacked Furyk’s leadership. The management of Team Europe has been praised for not giving the players a choice of who they play; Reed threw a tantrum when he didn’t get his top pick.
The outpouring of negative and mystified discourse following Furyk’s selection as 2027 Ryder Cup captain has been predictable in many ways. Mainly because the man who was at the front in 2018 will have to continue to answer for the decisions he made at the time – decisions that, at the time, stood the test of time. We remember that Shane Ryan i Golf Digestsaid the expert chronicler of modern Ryder Cup history Furyk had done “everything right” going into that week and that Thomas Bjorn, on the other hand, deserved some ire.
It can be easy to forget all of these things over time, but know that Furyk didn’t. He has made peace with that difficult result and is sure to make some changes to his approach ahead of next year’s Cup as well. But if he gets his tactics wrong in Ireland, will we be talking about Luke Donald’s shampoo choices again?
The most important thing to remember about the Ryder Cup is that it is often just a collection of coin flips. Both teams are so loaded with talent that there will be close wins and blowouts from both sides. There will be 40-footers that win holes and 4-footers that lose holes … on either side. Yes, Dodo Molinari will tilt the organization of the course in favor of Europe, but we are talking about the smallest advantages gained there. The truth is that when you flip a coin hundreds of times, you get a normalized result. When you flip a coin just a few dozen times, you can amass a wide range of believable results, which makes storytellers—from both teams and inside the media center, too—focus on intangibles like shampoo.
Donald sailed brilliantly in the Ryder Cup captaincy for the second time in Bethpage last fall and reaped all the rewards of the story after that, including his decisions to change the shampoo and sheets in his team’s hotel rooms. Excellent? Maniac? Somewhere in between? Whatever the case may be, hair care products are what we’ve found somewhat of a story telling device for the 2025 Cup.
Much more than we talk about Russell Henley.
If Henley had knocked in his birdie putt on the 18th hole of his singles match at Bethpage Black, the 2025 Ryder Cup is dangerously close to a coin flip. (A European co-captain even said so!) The leaderboard was red, the momentum was swinging in the direction of the United States, and a coin flip on the entirety of the match became a coin flip on everything. On the merits of Keegan Bradley’s new speeches. (Maybe they were brilliant?) On the vulgarity of the home crowd. (Maybe it was the American fans only spry enough?) If Henley’s shot falls, it’s likely a coin flip that we don’t spend Sunday night hearing all about how Donald figures out thread count and how light from a hallway can enter a dark bedroom under a door frame.
Anyone who wants to call the 2025 Ryder Cup “close” will have to admit that Furyk’s 2018 team actually trailed by just one point midway through Sunday afternoon as Finau (ahem, Furyk’s captain’s pick) blanked Tommy Fleetwood (now considered a 6-year-old Cupper4). deducted half a point. Dustin Johnson did the same. Jordan Spieth was walked by Thorbjorn Olesen and the final score was out of control thanks to the last eight games. The result New York Times the bomb was made even more possible because Reed himself beat a Ryder Cup rookie. But it’s worth remembering that a captain’s legacy can be decided on all those coin flip points on Sunday afternoon. Captains’ decisions are many, whether in the formations made or the hotel rooms chosen, and they are made in months, not hours. They are made with a wealth of data and instincts. And then 12 of the best players in the world have to act like they are one of the 12 best players in the world.
When Furyk woke up that Friday morning outside Paris, the scoreboard read 0-0 and eight of the top 12 players in the world were on his team. Furyk made a six of those eight in four balls in the morning and do you remember what happened? They built a 3-1 lead. The fact that it all went down had a lot to do with those players, but we never seem to talk about that.
In part, because Furyk shouldered all the blame.
;)
