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.

06 Oct 2023

Former US Ryder Cup skipper believes Zach Johnson did

Zach Johnson might go down as one of the worst Ryder Cup captains of all time with American golf fans but try telling that to 17-time PGA Tour winner Jim Furyk, who served as one of his vice-captains at Marco Simone last week.

Johnson's Team USA lost 16.5-11.5 to Luke Donald's Team Europe in Rome.

The visitors, who have never won a Ryder Cup away from home since 1993, found themselves down by 5 points after the first day's play last Friday.

USA failed to register a single win in any of the eight matches on day one, marking the first time that has ever happened in their Ryder Cup history.

Johnson admitted to a number of head colds and congestion in the team room as one of the big reasons for their lacklustre start.

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Many critics consider Johnson's Team USA got things badly wrong as the majority of the team had not played competitively for five weeks prior to the biennial dust-up, in stark contrast to all 12 players in Team Europe who had just played in the DP World Tour's flagship event of the season at the BMW PGA.

But Furyk, who also captained the US Ryder Cup team to a heavy defeat (17.5-10.5) at Le Golf National in 2018, considers Johnson "did a wonderful and was a great captain who was very organised".

He also admits Jamie Weir's report for Sky about a rift in the team room "simply wasn't true".

The US National Alert going off during this car crash absolutely buckled me. If that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is. pic.twitter.com/y2xdhgdE6O
— Bryce Ritchie (@BRitchieGolf) October 6, 2023

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? Share your thoughts and comments over on the GolfMagic social media channels.

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