Jim Furyk Ryder Cup appointment shows U.S. captaincy cupboard is bare

The golf writers’ traveling circus rolled down to wonderful Royal Birkdale for The Open media day and these haverings were cobbled together in the Henry Longhurst room, a delightful suite dedicated to that celebrated commentator of yore.

By the time you read this, we’ll have moved up the coast to Royal Lytham. Back in 1969, when Tony Jacklin thwacked his final drive down the 18th en route to Open glory there, the aforementioned Longhurst was positively giddy. “What a corker,” he cried in exultation.

Golf - 2018 Ryder Cup at Le Golf National - Guyancourt, France - September 28, 2018 Team USA captain Jim Furyk during the Fourballs REUTERS/Carl Recine

Funnily enough, an R&A official muttered something similar to this correspondent as he watched me wrestling with the tortured composition of this column. “What a plonker,” came the withering snort.

As for the high-heeled yins at the PGA of America? Well, a few observers have branded them a bunch of plonkers – or something like that – after they unveiled Jim Furyk as the captain of the USA team for next year’s Ryder Cup at Adare Manor.

Nothing against good ol' Jim, a fine campaigner and thoroughly decent gentleman, but the decision underlines the PGA of America’s desperation when it comes to skippers.

Furyk’s unorthodox, eccentric golf swing was once likened to “an octopus falling out of a tree.” Goodness knows how we’d describe the frantic flailings of the PGA of America?

Basically, they’ve been holding out for Tiger Woods to take the job for the last few years. It wasn’t a great look for the organization in charge.

Tiger’s procrastination and the general indecision it spawned totally undermined American attempts to win the Ryder Cup back.

Now that Woods is completely out of the picture, having retreated into rehabilitation for his various issues and ailments, the PGA of America has been forced back into adopting that familiar strategy of blind panic.

Furyk, of course, has been here before. He was captain back in 2018 when a star-studded USA slumped to a dismal defeat at Le Golf National.

Paris probably hadn’t witnessed so many downbeat members of an elite group leaving town since the Bastille was stormed.

It really was a desperate debacle and poor Furyk was in the not-so-merry midst of it.

His team, aiming to defend the cup won in convincing style two years earlier at Hazeltine, actually won the opening session 3-1 but would lose 16 ½ of the next 24 points available as the contest unravelled.

While European unity manifested itself in a buoyant 17½ - 10½ victory, the USA players were left to lick their wounds. One of them opted to open up some old ones, too.

Golf - 2018 Ryder Cup at Le Golf National - Guyancourt, France - September 29, 2018 - Team USA captain Jim Furyk during the Fourballs REUTERS/Carl Recine

Patrick Reed’s admission in the aftermath that American egos in the team room were part of the problem was so very, well, American.

His criticism of Jordan Spieth - “the issue’s obviously with Jordan not wanting to play with me” – wasn’t quite the grisly public filleting that Phil Mickelson performed on Tom Watson in front of a watching world in 2014, but it was just as damning.

An altercation, meanwhile, between Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson during the post-match booze up added fuel to the roaring flames of dysfunction.

That old American habit of flinging a star-spangled spanner into their own works had reared its head again. As one of my old colleagues said at the time, “They just don’t get it, do they?”

Furyk must have felt like tearing his hair out, if he had any. Here in 2026, the 55-year-old has been given another go at it as Team USA tries to claim a first win away from home since 1993.

That was the same year a young Furyk successfully navigated the PGA Tour’s qualifying school to earn his place at the top table. He even had hair back then, too.

Since the pummelling in Paris, Furyk has been a popular and successful Presidents Cup captain, but comparing that contest with the blazing intensity of the Ryder Cup is like comparing The Open with the slapstick thrashings of yesterday’s media day. It’s a totally different beast.

Golf - 2018 Ryder Cup at Le Golf National - Guyancourt, France - September 29, 2018 - Team USA captain Jim Furyk during the Fourballs REUTERS/Paul Childs

Luke Donald, his European counterpart, will be going for three wins in a row in 2027. Despite daily tickets costing an eye-popping $580, a first batch of briefs sold out within a frenzied hour the other day.

Good luck to Furyk. He’ll need it.

Nick Rodger is a longtime golf correspondent for the Scotland Herald, part of USA Today Co.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Jim Furyk Ryder Cup appointment shows U.S. cupboard is bare