Jim Furyk understands his Ryder Cup assignment

NEWTOWN SQUARE, PA — In his first extended media appearance since being named U. S. captain for the 2027 Ryder Cup, the most notable moments of Jim Furyk's Wednesday news conference came when he struck a note that has become a rarity on the American side, even in the wake of emphatic failure: Self-criticism.

We've seen disappointment and we've seen regret—too much, arguably—but anyone investing their hopes in an American victory in Adare Manor can take some reassurance in the fact that Furyk is willing to go as far as accountability. Don't get it wrong—this wasn't a Phil Mickelson-in-Gleneagles-style scorched earth campaign. Furyk was polite, and he didn't name names (at times he was so careful that he slipped into equivocations like, "instead of saying something's not quite right, I think I would say we could definitely be doing a lot better job"), but implicit in his captaincy goals was the idea that America had, at some point, lost its way.

For example, we can look at the four times he used the word "improve": "I think there's a lot of things logistically that we can do that we can improve on our organization. " "Then I really look at it from a long-term perspective, and something we really need to improve on and get better at. I like to say we need to create a blueprint.

" "The same thing applies with our analytics, numbers crunching. It's the application that becomes very important. That's something that we need to look at and improve on.