Furyk: I want a chip on US shoulders
First, the Ryder Cup captains hit balls off the Eiffel Tower and then Thomas Bjorn and Jim Furyk spoke of the scale of the challenge facing their respective teams. For the Americans, this plainly means not getting too high and mighty, regardless of the skyscraping declarations made recently by some US commentators.
Bjorn and Furyk were in the French capital as part of the “Year To Go” celebrations, although there are actually “only” 11½ months until the match at Le Golf National.
At the press conference, inevitably the question of Tiger Woods arose after the revelation that he had been given the green light to resume full practice after almost a year out with back problems.
“Tiger Woods is a great resource and would be a welcome addition to the team, as a player or as a vicecaptain,” Furyk said.
Woods earned rave reviews in the Hazeltine backroom, as Davis Love’s side won the Ryder Cup for the first time in eight years, and was again a notable presence in New Jersey last month when the US inflicted a belittling Presidents Cup defeat on the Internationals.
That 19-11 score, on top of the 17-11 rout over Europe 12 months previous, inspired Golf.com, the leading American website, to ask “Is this US squad the best golf team ever?” and for one lauded US scribe to worry for the future of the biennial event. “This US team is so deep/talented/ cohesive they’re gonna ruin the Ryder Cup,” he wrote. “I fear a decadeplus of American blowouts.”
Furyk claimed not to have heard these pronouncements – or, indeed, many more along the same lines – but if he had, it is clear he would have winced.
“I don’t want them going in being overconfident that they are the greatest,” he said. “I want them going in with a chip on their shoulder that they have something to prove.”
Never mind a personal record of played in nine, lost seven, Furyk is acutely aware the US have not won on European soil since 1993.
“We will have a lot of young talent on my team and I’m anxious to see how they handle that challenge,” he said. “Europe has handled those away matches far better in the last 25 years than we have.”
Certainly, Bjorn is not cowering. Tyrrell Hatton’s second win in as many Sundays at the Italian Open took the Englishman up to 17th in the world.
“I looked at the world rankings this morning and there are 10 Europeans in the top 20 and 11 in the top 21,” he said. “You tell me when that’s happened before. So, as much I know that the US team is extremely strong, I don’t think Europe has ever been stronger on paper.”