FORMER US RYDER CUP SKIPPER BELIEVES ZACH JOHNSON DID “WONDERFUL JOB” AS CAPTAIN.

PGA Tour legend Jim Furyk considers Zach Johnson was a “great Ryder Cup captain” at Marco Simone.
Zach Johnson may be considered one of the worst Ryder Cup captains of all time among American golf fans, but try telling that to 17-time PGA Tour champion Jim Furyk,  one of the team’s his deputy at Marco Simone last week.

Johnson’s American team lost  to Luke Donald’s European team 16.5-11.5 in Rome.

The visitors, who have never won the Ryder Cup away from home since 1993, were five points adrift after day one last Friday.

The United States failed to record a single victory in  eight opening day matches, a first  in  Ryder Cup history.

Johnson admitted that some headaches and congestion in the team’s gym were among the main reasons for their poor start.  Many critics said Johnson’s U.S. team had made a serious mistake because the majority of the team had not played competitively in the five weeks before the biennial competition, in sharp contrast to the team’s 12 European players. compete on the DP World Tour. the premier event of the season at the BMW PGA.

But Furyk, who also led the US Ryder Cup team to a crushing defeat (17.5-10.5) at  Golf National in 2018, believes Johnson “did a great job and was a great captain.” , very organized”.

He also admitted that Jamie Weir’s report to Sky about a rift in the dorm was “simply untrue”.

The US national alert caused by this car accident left me completely stressed. If that isn’t a sign then I don’t know what is.

Furyk told Golf Today:

“As far as changes in the team room, no, I think Zach Johnson did a wonderful job, he was a great captain, very organised, he gave the players a freedom to be themselves and with that I believe they bonded very, very well. You saw the support everyone had for Patrick Cantlay on the 18th green and the waving of the hats. I guess my biggest disappointment where I feel bad for Zach is hearing or having to read about a rift that we had in the team room or that guys weren’t getting along, and it just simply wasn’t true. The guys support each other, but I think you saw that in the media room afterwards and you saw a lot of support from the team. It’s just part of the Ryder Cup, there always seems to be some, at the end of the day someone is going to report one way or another that something happened bad but it simply wasn’t the case and I would stand by that forever.”

What did you make of Zach Johnson’s captaincy at the 2023 Ryder Cup? Why did it go so wrong for USA on the opening day?