Zach Johnson’s captaincy of the 2023 U.S Ryder Cup may have ended in colossal disappointment – a lopsided defeat at the hands of Team Europe – but it gave birth to one unforgettable line: “You don’t leave JT at home.”
That was Johnson’s response to his decision to make Justin Thomas, who was mired in a slump and didn’t even qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs last year, a captain’s pick for his 12-man team that represented the U.S. at the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome.
Jim Furyk, who is back for a second tour of duty as U.S. Presidents Cup captain after losing in that role in 2018 in France at the Ryder Cup, must have missed the memo because he decided to go with Brian Harman, Max Homa, Russell Henley, Tony Finau, Sam Burns and Keegan Bradley.
It led Golf Digest’s Shane Ryan to frame his question to Furyk during a press conference on Tuesday perfectly: “A year ago everybody was asking Zach Johnson how could you possibly have taken Justin Thomas. Now I’m asking you how can you possibly have left Justin Thomas off the team?” he said.
Thomas still hasn’t returned to the winner’s circle but he managed to record five top-10 finishes this season and shot the seventh-best gross score at the Tour Championship last weekend, a tournament that Homa didn’t even qualify for. The fact that Thomas was 19th in points is irrelevant other than he failed to qualify automatically for the top 6 and put himself in a position where he needed a pick. (The whole reason for allowing picks is so the captain doesn’t have to take Nos. 7-12 in points based on two years of performance in stroke play for a match-play competition and yet Furyk selected Nos. 7-12.) In Furyk’s defense, Thomas is far from playing like the two-time major winner and former world No. 1 and maybe the analytics that are treated like state secrets screamed that Homa or Henley were the better puzzle pieces — in Furyk’s parlance — but Thomas’s game still matches up against the best and its trending in the right direction of late. Plus, he’s got the “It factor” in match-play events.
Furyk’s reply to Ryan’s question was largely a non-answer so let’s move on but he did give a better explanation on Golf Channel for his decision, saying of JT, “He’s a great team room guy, He’s going to play on a ton of these teams in the future as well, and one day be a captain and a great one. Tough omission, but I had to take the 12 guys I saw fit.”
I tried really hard to make sense of why Furyk passed on JT, a player with a 17-7-4 lifetime record between the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, not to mention a team leader who can be the spark in the locker room. Furyk put him out first in singles in 2018 when he was captain and JT delivered by downing Rory McIlroy. And yet he didn’t want that guy on his team.
Team USA golfer Max Homa (left), golfer Collin Morikawa (center), and golfer Justin Thomas (right) talk on the eighth tee during the four-ball match play of the Presidents Cup golf tournament at Quail Hollow Club. Mandatory Credit: Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports
When it was my turn, I asked Furyk an array of questions hoping to bring some clarity but he downplayed any of the possible plausible explanations I could fathom. Furyk’s mistake in making captain’s picks in 2018 was picking players that weren’t a good fit for Le Golf National, with its thick rough that demanded precision over power off the tee. Did he learn from his mistake by passing on JT because he wasn’t a good fit for Royal Montreal? No.
“I see him as a little bit of a chameleon. I think he’s a smart player. I think he can change. If the golf course had asked for us to hit the ball straight and get it in the fairway and get it in play, he can do that. If it asks you to bomb away and power is more important, I think he does it,” Furyk said. “It has a bearing and a weight on it. I think present form has a bearing and a weight. I think your history has a weight. I think there’s a lot of things that go into it.”
Did he pass on JT because his BFF and partner for life, Jordan Spieth, had failed to make the team and had undergone surgery to repair a wrist injury last week? They have become a bit of a package deal, although their form at the 2023 Ryder Cup should have future captains reconsidering if they are going to be a modern-day Seve-Ollie for the U.S. side.
“No, zero. Zero. I think JT has the opportunity to pair with a lot of different guys and also be a leader, if that makes sense. Take the young guy under his arm,” Furyk said shooting down this latest attempt to make sense of it. “We don’t happen to have that many rookies on this team, when you look at it. I think Sahith and Russell are two guys that haven’t played either on a Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup team. We have a lot of veteran status, but JT — I realize I didn’t pick him, but I’m not going to say anything but great things about the guy because I love him to death.”
In an interview with Furyk a week earlier, he eluded to the fact that Tiger Woods would have some sort of behind-the-scenes role without really specifying what that would be. Had he discussed the captain’s picks with Tiger, who loves to obsess over this stuff?
“No, I did not,” Furyk said. “Tiger and I have been friendly over the years, but I didn’t give him a call to talk about the picks at all. I think the last time that he was — correct me if I’m wrong. I think Australia is probably the last time he sat in as one of the captains, I believe. I’m sure Davis leaned on him a little bit for Charlotte, but from afar.”
Certainly, Tiger would have told Furyk, in his own special way, “You’re taking JT, right?”
Even Johnson knew it: “You don’t leave JT at home.”
But at least Furyk didn’t snub the only Canadian to win the Canadian Open in nearly 60 years like Mike Weir did. What in the name of hockey was Weirsy doing in leaving Nick Taylor off his team, eh? The fun part is we get to see it all play out in just over three weeks in Montreal and then we’ll know if there was any method to these captains’ madness.