Jim Furyk aims to lead the U.S. team to victory at the 2027 Ryder Cup in Ireland, addressing past challenges faced by Team USA. He acknowledges the need for significant preparation to overcome issues that have hindered success abroad.
Key points
Jim Furyk is the captain for the 2027 Ryder Cup.
The U.S. team has not won on foreign soil since 1993.
Furyk aims to create a relaxed atmosphere for the team.
He acknowledges the need for significant preparation.
Mentioned in this story
Jim FurykIreland
Ryder Cup
NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. – Jim Furyk remembers the long faces. The U.S. team was whipping the Europeans late on Saturday at the 2008 Ryder Cup at Valhalla and Furyk was hunched around the 18th green and noticed how loose his team was. They were laughing and hugging while across the green the Euros looked tight. He turned to his wife, Tabitha, and whispered, “Oh, my God, they look like us every other year.”
That is the goal of Furyk when he takes the American 12-man team to Ireland as captain for the 2027 Ryder Cup. Easier said than done as he knows all too well from previous experience as captain in 2018 at Paris and given that the U.S. side hasn’t won on foreign soil since 1993. On Wednesday, he met with the media and laid out his plan of attack against the issues plaguing Team USA.
“We've got a lot of work to do,” he conceded.
Jim Furyk looks on during a practice round at the 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club.
Jim Furyk looks on during a practice round at the 2026 PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club.
Furyk plans to develop a blueprint for future success and said it won’t be that different from the one the U.S. side put in place after defeat in 2014, which led to the creation of the Task Force. The U.S. managed to hold serve, winning in 2016 and 2021 at home but lost 15-13 at Bethpage last October. In the aftermath of its latest defeat, Furyk, who served as a vice captain to Keegan Bradley, wrote down his notes to help the team move forward.
“I believe we had a vision in '14 that got us to a certain point. I just don't think we evolved along the way,” he said.
Furyk shared that he was approached for the Ryder Cup captain job by the PGA the week before the Masters and he met with new PGA CEO Terry Clark at the Masters before accepting the job. He described the task at hand as two-fold and running concurrently. In the short term, that is simply to win back the Cup in 2027 at Adare Manor.
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“It's not going to be easy,” he said. “We have to scratch and claw, but I think we have the talent to be able to do that.”
For starters, he said, the U.S. must improve its play in foursomes, or alternate shot, noting its abysmal 6-20 record in foursomes during the last three matches.
“I'll go back to the Presidents Cup where we had pretty much a blowout win by seven points, and we lost the foursome matches by three points. I mean, it's pretty glaring that we're not prepared for that format,” he said, adding that they can’t keep digging a big hole in that format.
The U.S. has worked with Scouts, Inc., for help with analytics in the past, and Furyk said that was an area he would target for improvement.
“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,” he said. “This is something that I quite honestly have been thinking about for years because I've been involved with so many teams.”
Furyk conceded that the data is only effective if it is used properly.
“It's the application that becomes very important. That's something that we need to look at and improve on. Surely that doesn't fall totally on Scouts. That falls on captains as well and me included,” he said.
U.S. team captain Jim Furyk at the 2018 Ryder Cup at Le Golf National.
U.S. team captain Jim Furyk at the 2018 Ryder Cup at Le Golf National.
Furyk said he still would have six captain's picks and that a new point system needed to be devised to help select the six automatic qualifiers based on the disparity in purses that exists on Tour between signature and regular events. He reviewed his thinking for his captain’s picks in Paris, who combined to go 2-10-1, and when asked if he would be able to make the tough choices this time, he said, “Yes, I'm prepared and willing and will make those tough decisions. We're going to put the best team of 12 together, and that's really important because there needs to be cohesiveness. The pairings need to match. We need to fit the golf course, and I need some guys in good form as well.”
Furyk, 56, said he will play sparingly if at all on either tour – he declined a spot in this week’s PGA Championship and has played just once on PGA Tour Champions this season – and already has scheduled his first trip to Limerick, Ireland, to get acquainted with the golf course. He said he will be around the Tour at signature events and majors frequently, perhaps in a developing role as a television commentator. This year, he has worked at several events for Golf Channel.
“I'm going to pick the toughest, the grittiest, the ones that I know will thrive in an away match, that love a partisan crowd,” he added. “It's fun being at home. It's fun having the U-S-A chants. But man, there's something about it. I got a chill down my spine every time I got to fly to Europe and play for a crowd that was rooting against me. I think it's great.”
There’s much room for improvement in shaping the future of the U.S. team for long-term success. Furyk said that continuity would be key and he would return to using the vice captain role as a way to develop the future leaders of the team. He already has named Stewart Cink and Justin Leonard and said he would save a spot for the next U.S. Presidents Cup captain.
“We want the guys each year to have that continuity, to have that symmetry, so they're not playing with a different offensive coordinator every year, if that makes sense,” he said.
He also wants to make the Ryder Cup a bigger priority and year-round job so that future captains are put in a better position to succeed.
“I just think we could be better at this if it's 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,” he said. “When I look at my job, it's really to create a culture, a chemistry amongst them and put them in positions where they can be really successful.”
Furyk said he has been empowered by the PGA to make the necessary changes and that “everyone’s got their heart in the right place.”
Is Furyk the right man for the job? Can he be Davis Love 2.0, who lost in 2012 on home soil at Medinah but came back four years later to lead the U.S. to victory at Hazeltine? As he embarks on this ambitious goal of remaking the way the U.S. team goes about its business, Furyk sounded a bit like Gene Hackman in the movie "Hoosiers" when he said of his future team: “I see the heart, the grit. I just love these guys.”
