At a press conference for his annual Furyk & Friends PGA Tour Champions event, past Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup captain Jim Furyk could not escape questions about the recent Ryder Cup, particularly since he was there assisting Keegan Bradley with the team as a vice captain.
“You're always going to second-guess what could have been,” Furyk said, knowing the questions would come. “You're always going to think about it, but I look at the way our players played.”
He admitted the U.S. came out slowly on Friday.
“Saturday, we played some amazing golf and still lost traction,” he noted. “I tip my cap to the Europeans. They were aggressive. They knocked down pins. They were amazing on the greens.”
Then he talked about Sunday.
“Set scoring records for a Ryder Cup, yet we still got nudged, and we just dug ourselves a really, really deep hole going into Sunday,” he added.
So deep, they probably saw India and Malaysia at the bottom of it.
“Usually, you can measure the heart of a team, you can measure the character of a team when the chips are down,” he said. “You see it on the sidelines in an NFL game when a team's getting beat. You see the bickering, you see the arguing, the complaining. Our team didn't have that. They had a lot of pride. They were hurting, they were getting beat, and obviously weren't happy with the results, but the team stuck together.”
He called Sunday’s play “damn near a miracle.”
Of the 12 matches that day, only Ludvig Aberg was able to outright win his point for the Europeans. The U.S. won six matches, four were halved, and one, of course, was halved in an envelope.
“You shouldn't be able to come back from seven points and they -- a putt or two and they would have. Pretty darn impressive,” he insisted.
He should know. He’s been involved with 24 teams counting both Presidents Cups and Ryder Cups.
Regarding captains and the selection process, he said he knows how it was done at the PGA Tour for the Presidents Cup, but not at the PGA of America for the Ryder Cup. However, he also said he’s never been upset with a captain who was selected.
“I would probably come across foolish if I said there weren't things we could improve on, and I think there's a bunch of folks that have some ideas on how to do that. It's just a matter of moving forward,” he concluded.
Speaking of moving forward, next year, his Furyk & Friends tournament moves to an oceanfront resort. Tabitha Furyk will remain as tournament director, and that’s probably a good thing since, under her direction, they have raised $5 million for charity, and this year isn’t over yet.
Furyk saluted historic Timuquana Country Club’s willingness to help get them started.
“They gave us the ability to kind of start this event, really gained some traction,” he said. “(We were) voted players' favorite event, voted best on Tour by the PGA Tour.”
Their new venue will be the Ocean Course at Hammock Beach Resort & Spa in Palm Coast, Florida, about an hour south of Jacksonville. It is aptly named since the Jack Nicklaus course has six oceanfront holes.
“Lot of moons had to align for this event to kind of come together,” Furyk explained about the start of the tournament which was a smaller pro-am. “That first 10 years, where we kind of got our feet under us and kind of set a nice base to start this event, was good. But the blessing from the PGA Tour, Constellation stepping up, being able to come to Timuquana, surely was a big step.”
Now it’s on to a bigger venue.
The way the move came to fruition was that Hammock Beach, like everyone else in the Jacksonville area, knew the Timuquana contract was up this year. Brian Howard of Hammock Beach reached out to the tournament, and the rest is about to be new history.
According to Furyk, without their founding “Friends” and sponsors, Constellation and Circle K, Miller Electric, W.W. Gay and Baptist Health, they would not have reached this point.
“We'll kind of turn the page and look at Hammock Beach and look at the Ocean Course, Jack Nicklaus course, amazing venue,” he added.
While they have enjoyed beautiful views of the St. Johns River at Timuquana, the best view for a media center in golf, the new course will have it benefits, too.
“Down there, we've got the beach, a mile stretch on the golf course,” Furyk explained. “So beautiful views, great resort. I think we'll set up some great fan experiences there.”
Players will stay right on site, according to Furyk. Who doesn’t love almost no commute from resort to golf course?