Jim Furyk considers Royal Montreal for his six Presidents Cup captain picks
“I’m just glad Scottie (Scheffler) was able to hold on at the end,” joked Jim Furyk, captain of the US Presidents Cup, on Monday.
Scheffler, the world No. 1 and favorite to be this year’s PGA Tour Player of the Year, secured his spot on the U.S. team months ago. But Furyk knows that waiting for automatic qualifying to end on Sunday, when the top six U.S. points scorers would earn a spot on his team, was the easy part. Now comes the hard part.
“It feels like it takes so long to prepare and once (automatic qualification) is over, it all happens so quickly,” Furyk told GolfChannel.com. “I learned (as captain of the 2018 U.S. Ryder Cup team) how quickly the last two or three weeks have gone by.”
These are the six players who qualified for the US and International Presidents Cup teams.
Furyk said there are many lessons he can take from the U.S.’ loss at the 2018 Ryder Cup that he will use as Presidents Cup captain, including the type of course that awaits the Americans at Royal Montreal. He took a scouting trip to the course with his family about a month ago and expects “some tough rough and tight fairways.”
In 2018, it was a similar setup at Le Golf National, famously lined with thick rough and narrow fairways, which largely blunted the U.S. team’s power advantage. Those lessons will be in the back of Furyk’s mind as he prepares to announce the six captain’s picks next Tuesday.
“One of the things I saw in 2018 was we had a bunch of courses that were bomber golf courses, and then we came to Jersey and played Ridgewood, and out of the top 15, one guy was a short and straight shot and the rest were bombers (on the leaderboard),” Furyk recalled. “Knowing we were going to Le Golf National and it was going to be super tight set up, I knew the courses we were playing were pretty open.”
This time, the top U.S. players faced a more challenging test in the playoffs, from the season-opening TPC Southwind to last week’s match at Castle Pines, won by Keegan Bradley, who finished ninth in fairways hit this week, to this week’s finale at East Lake, which has been redesigned to present an even more challenging test off the tee.
Furyk plans to be in East Lake on Tuesday to meet with players and said he estimates there are 10 to 12 players in the running to be chosen as one of his six captains, including last week’s winner, Bradley.
“It’s great to see him rise; he was about 18th on the list and strengthened himself,” said Furyk about next year’s US Ryder Cup captain, who is on 10th on the final points list of the Presidents Cup.
In addition to Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Wyndham Clark, Patrick Cantlay and Sahith Theegala automatically qualified for this year’s U.S. Presidents Cup team. The next six players on the final points list were Sam Burns, Tony Finau, Russell Henley, Bradley, Brian Harman and Max Homa.
