MONTREAL – U.S. Captain Jim Furyk stood at the 18th green late on Friday afternoon when Si Woo Kim drained a 15-foot putt to complete a clean sweep of the five foursomes matches to tie the score at 5-5 in the 2024 Presidents Cup.
“That was a massive putt by Si Woo Kim to make it 0 and 5,” Furyk recalled on Sunday.
At the time, Furyk wore a smirk on his face that said, Really? This cannot be happening again.
After all, as the U.S. Ryder Cup captain in 2018 in Paris, Furyk’s team jumped to a 3-1 lead in the first session only to be swept in the second session. Then the European rout was on. Déjà vu all over again?
Furyk is nothing if not a fighter and he formed a plan. He had been contemplating for as many as four holes, he said, how he was going to address the team and what messaging to deliver.
“It’s easy to buy in when things are rolling; it’s hard to buy in when things aren’t going well,” he explained.
In that moment, Furyk conceived a plan.
“I told the (assistant) captains on the golf course, I think what I’m going to do tonight is instead of standing up and giving a rah-rah speech, let’s lock them all in a room and let’s talk it out,” he said. “Let’s hear what they have to say, what they felt and saw on the golf course.”
They met as a team and Furyk started but he didn’t say much. “I didn’t need to,” he said.
Tony Finau spoke first and Xander Schauffele, Scottie Scheffler, Collin Morikawa – guys Furyk said “aren’t the loudest” – were among those to chime in. One by one, members of Team USA stepped up and shared what they have used in their career to pick themselves up off the mat in their own low-lights.
“In moments like that, if you can be vulnerable and you can share, it really pulls people together,” Furyk said. “Friday night could’ve been a little bit of a panic and it was a very calm night, a very right the ship and let’s get out there.”
The alarm sounded at 3:30 a.m. the next morning, and Furyk and the team climbed on to the team bus to the course at 4:15 a.m. Even before balls were in the air, Furyk knew his team was in a good place.
“The look on their faces coming off the bus on Saturday morning, I was jacked up,” he said.
The U.S. claim three of four points in both the morning and afternoon session to stake the team to an 11-7 lead and seized back all the momentum.
“To see how we all responded spoke to the character of the team,” Finau said. “Today the Cup was won but we really won it yesterday. That’s what separated us, gave us a big cushion and all the pressure was on them to try to beat us.”
It would have been a stain on a Hall of Fame-worthy resume to be a two-time loser as U.S. captain, to be the one at the helm when the mighty U.S. finally went down to defeat to the Internationals. But as the victorious captain of the 2024 Presidents Cup, Furyk sounded a bit like Coach Norman Dale in the movie Hoosiers when he said, “This group is special, they really are.”
