Jim Furyk knows full well that his playing record is much better in the Presidents Cup as opposed to the Ryder Cup.
So is the overall U.S. record.
“We’ve had a lot of success in the Presidents Cup … not the Ryder Cup,” the Jacksonville resident said earlier this week.
Furyk, who was named the 2024 U.S. Presidents Cup captain for the matches at Royal Montreal, has a 20-10-3 record in the Presidents Cup, which matches the U.S. vs. an International team.
He’s also played for Presidents Cup teams that have gone 5-1-1.
Furyk’s record in the Ryder Cup is 10-20-4 and the U.S. is 2-7 when he’s played. And that’s not to single out Furyk — Tiger Woods (13-21-3), Phil Mickelson (18-22-7) and Davis Love III (9-12-5) also have losing Ryder Cup records, and winning Presidents Cup records.
Furyk, who was the U.S. Ryder Cup captain for a loss in Paris in 2018, said it’s a matter of history. The Ryder Cup has been around since 1927 and it’s become huge since Continental Europe was added to the mix in 1987.
So has the pressure — on both sides.
The Presidents Cup began in 1994. The U.S. is 12-1-1 in that event and 4-9 in Ryder Cups during that time frame. While the European teams have had their share of stars — such World Golf Hall of Fame members Colin Montgomerie, Padraig Harrington, Bernhard Langer, Seve Ballesteros, Jose Maria Olazabal and Sandy Lyle — the International teams have included Hall of Famers Greg Norman, Nick Price, Retief Goosen and Vijay Singh, along with those waiting in the wings one day for their call, such as Jason Day, Adam Scott and Hideki Matsuyama.
So it’s not an issue of one team being that much better than the other. The weight of history seems to be the difference.
“I think we’ve always gone into the Presidents Cup a touch more loose,” Furyk said. “We wanted so badly for our team to do well in the Ryder Cup that I think we’ve gone in too tight.”
Tiger Woods of the U.S. shakes hands with teammate Jim Furyk after Woods clinched the Presidents Cup with a 4-and-3 victory over Aaron Baddeley.
Since the PGA of America established its Ryder Cup Task Force following a loss in 2014, the U.S. has been much more competitive. The U.S. has won two of the last three Ryder Cups but will be trying to win on European soil for the first time since 1993 in Italy this fall, under captain Zach Johnson of St. Simons Island, Ga.
Even though two organizations run the two match-play events (the PGA of America operates the Ryder Cup and the PGA Tour the Presidents Cup), Furyk said the best practices have been shared by captains in both events.
Plus, the captaincies have been interchangeable: since the Ryder Cup task force was created, Furyk, Love and Steve Stricker have led Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teams, with Woods (the 2019 Presidents Cup captain), the presumptive favorite to lead the U.S. in the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage State Park.
“We get to do this every year and we’ve built a good program over the past 10 years or so,” Furyk said. “You can approach both events similar, from year to year, and we’ve got a rotation of captains that know the players and the players know the captains.”
Since the Ryder Cup Task Force was formed, the U.S. is a combined 5-1 in international match play.
