Jim Furyk may have felt a particular sense of satisfaction after USA clinched the Presidents Cup in relatively comfortable fashion at Royal Montreal last week.
USA continued their dominance of the Presidents Cup, running out 18.5-11.5 winners against the Internationals. It was particularly impressive given that Mike Weir‘s men had matched the US’s clean sweep on Thursday when they teed it up again on Friday.
At that moment, it appeared that Weir’s men had a phenomenal opportunity. However, perhaps the Canadian did not know whether to stick or twist, and Friday’s results certainly seemed to influence his pairings on Saturday. Remarkably, he put out the same four pairings in the morning and the afternoon. Brad Faxon admitted that he could not believe Weir’s decision to keep the same eight players out.
Jim Furyk meanwhile, did not panic. The Americans seized the momentum back and won the day 6-2 to move to within 4.5 points of retaining the trophy. There was still a chance for the Internationals at 11-7 down, but they needed a near-flawless Sunday.
What Jim Furyk predicted ahead of the Sunday singles ahead of the Presidents Cup
There was a brief period when the Internationals were ahead in enough matches where they would have been on course for victory had they also taken the lead in the matches which were tied. However, the US were able to get the job done long before the final match concluded.
And speaking on Fairways of Life with Matt Adams, US vice-captain Stewart Cink suggested that Furyk had perfectly called what was set to happen during the singles.
“I don’t think reputation’s really at stake with Jim Furyk, first of all. Can set that aside right now, I don’t think Jim Furyk’s reputation would have been soiled in any way had we not won the Presidents Cup. Safe to say, he’s a quality guy and he has the respect of everybody. His experience though, is vast and that brain, that Furyk brain, he’s got a bigger filing cabinet up there than most of us have,” he said.
“He remembers so many details about all these cups he’s been a part of, and he applied it as a captain. The things that worked well, what hasn’t worked well, he was really great at mentoring all four of us assistants. For instance, on Sunday, he kind of pulled us aside and said, ‘listen, here’s how today’s going to go, we got a little bit of a lead, there’s going to be a couple of hours where it’s going to look really scary, we’re going to get off to a hot start, it’s going to look scary, and then in the end, I think we’re going to pull through and win this thing big’. And I mean, he couldn’t have predicted it more perfectly than what happened.”
A superb job from the captain
In truth, Furyk probably gave the Internationals a little too much credit in suggesting that the matches would be in the balance for a couple of hours. Ultimately, the US were never in too much danger. At the stage where the scale could have potentially tipped in the Internationals’ favour, the visitors were able to quickly take control again.
But Furyk deserves a lot of credit. It would have been easy to worry about what happened on Friday, particularly as his previous experience of captaincy had ended in defeat at the 2018 Ryder Cup.
The players raved about Furyk’s captaincy, and he ensured that there was no complacency at all from his big players with Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay and Collin Morikawa all winning four points. Meanwhile, Scottie Scheffler produced his best performance yet in a team event.
And while some may not read too much into the US’s win, it is surely fair to say that it was almost even more impressive because of the hammering they had taken on Friday when they then stormed to victory.
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