Is Jim Furyk the right pick as Ryder Cup captain? Our writers discuss

Dylan Dethier, senior writer: Once it became clear that the original frontrunner (Tiger Woods) was out of the running and my preferred pick (Fred Couples, paired with a very specific quant) wasn’t going to happen, this turned into a giant shrug for me. Not because I don’t care or don’t think it’s important — just because I’m not sure there was one specific unassailable correct answer. The U.S. Ryder Cup system doesn’t have a lot of recent heroes. But I will say this: Furyk showed plenty of humility after their 2018 drubbing in France and players raved about his Presidents Cup captaincy. I think he’ll do well.

But do you think there were better options?

Zak: The cupboard was bare! Extremely bare. I would have accepted other options, like Stew Cink, but it really goes to show how uncertain the candidates are. Not to mention the recent changes in leadership at the PGA of America. It all feels in flux with that organization, so having some stability in Furyk feels like the best case scenario.

Colgan: I probably would have called Keegan Bradley again.

Dethier: I’m still hoping for a Keegan comeback story where he finds his form from last year and plays his way onto this team. Again, Fred Couples paired with a data scientist would have been the ultimate old-school/new-school pairing. But I’m not sure Freddie would have consented to all the photoshoots.

But if the cupboard is so bare, as mentioned above, shouldn’t there be blame for that somewhere? Meanwhile Luke Donald is looking for his third straight victory.

Zak: Everyone is at fault. The players for playing poorly, the captains for making poor decisions, the PGA for not establishing better relationships with the players, certain players demanding more money — I could go on and on. It all breeds a certain culture — or rather, a lack of certain culture that Europe has in spades.

Colgan: Clearly the PGA of America has not done an effective job of building the infrastructure around the Cup (outside of making money from it — they’re REALLY good at that). Bradley was basically thrown to the wolves and forced to contend with potentially playing in the event. There’s no culture, to Sean’s point, and no real team identity. It shows!

Dethier: There’s certainly an alternate universe in which Phil Mickelson is coming off a winning captaincy at Bethpage Black and heading for back-to-back Cups at Adare Manor and, well, just saw the next question, let’s continue this there.

The AP reported that Furyk was the pick as soon as Tiger Woods declined the job following his March arrest on suspicion of DUI. Meanwhile, Phil Mickelson, who was once thought to be a future Ryder Cup captain, hasn’t been on the radar since he left for LIV Golf. How much, or how little, have these two affected the PGA of America’s long-term Ryder Cup plan?

Zak: Immensely? Massively? Grotesquely? Is there a bigger word I’m missing? It’s possible that the two greatest American golfers of the ‘90s and 2000s will have both been too chaotic to captain in 2021, 2023, 2025 and 2027 — possibly right when they were needed most. I’d look to blame others more if Tiger and Phil weren’t the auto-placements on the original Ryder Cup task force that was formed a decade ago.

Colgan: Yeah, that’s the elephant in the room. The void is THIS massive because those guys are missing.

Dethier: I went searching in the archives to try to find what consensus would have been pre-everything and found this from Alan Shipnuck, writing for our mag: “Steve Stricker is the obvious choice for 2020, with the Cup being in Wisconsin, at Whistling Straits … after that, it lines up for Zach Johnson in ’22, Phil in ’24 and Tiger in ’26.” First Covid hit and the 2020 Ryder Cup became the 2021 Ryder Cup, but Shipnuck was still correct about Stricker and Johnson. Then LIV landed, plus [gestures] everything else. But originally, Phil and Tiger would have been next — that’s what everybody assumed would happen. So, yeah. Their absence has changed everything. In fairness, the European pipeline was laid out, too, and included some combination of Stenson/Poulter/Westwood/McDowell before those four left for LIV. Luke Donald stepped in and became arguably the greatest Ryder Cup captain in history. These things can cut both ways.

What do you think the better option in general is: a veteran captain, like Furyk, who can learn from mistakes or successes, or new blood via a rookie captain?

Zak: Veterans in the Ryder Cup, newbies in the Presidents Cup.

Colgan: I like the vet captain path, it’s the most defensible part of the Furyk decision.

Dethier: If you bring in a new-blood captain you need to make sure there’s rock-solid infrastructure around him — and I’m not sure Keegan Bradley had enough of that in 2025. Furyk will be a steady hand and his players should have enough of a collective chip on their shoulder that he won’t need much of a pump-up speech anyway. I guess I’m talking myself into this pick more as we go here. Furyk can use decades of heartbreak and near-misses at Ryder Cups as motivation. He’s seen what it looks like when things go well and what it looks like when they don’t. He may be the perfect steady hand for what will be a fraught Ryder Cup atmosphere.

And your first question for Furyk in his introductory press conference would be?

Zak: It’s been eight years since Paris and two years since Montreal — do you feel like you know what’s best to win in Ireland or do you still need the next year to figure that out?

Colgan: What’s the first thing you changed from your captainship in 2018?

Dethier: Did you expect this job?

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