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THE RYDER CUP

September 30, 2018

Team USA

Guyancourt, France

STEVE TODD: Thanks, Team USA, for joining me. Jim, just on behalf of Team USA, if you could give your opening comments at the end of this Ryder Cup.

JIM FURYK: I think I'll reiterate what I said on the 18th green: The amphitheatre here, the venue, the golf course, the fans, I really can't imagine, if you went down this line, if we could have -- if you could ever have a better venue or better place to play or better crowd to play in front of.

I don't think we could have a better crowd, a better venue. We were treated great this week, maybe I'll accept from The European Team.

Hats off to what they accomplished this week. Thomas did a great job as captain. Players on their team, class acts, and gritty. When we put some heat on them early this afternoon, they responded. And they played some great golf this week, and I take my cap off. Thomas was a better captain, and their team out-played us. And there's nothing else more you can say. They deserved to win. They played well.

Q. Why was he a better captain?
RICKIE FOWLER: Well, he wasn't a better captain.

JIM FURYK: He put his guys in good position. He did a good job. I think -- I think when a team is successful, as they were and as well as they played, that shows to me they had great leadership. And I think when you put yourself in this position, you walk into this room, you've got to tip your cap and you've got to give them credit.

I know everyone on this table wishes they had played better, and I wish I probably would have done some things differently, as well, but at the end of the day we did the best we could and we all worked hard.

I look across the room and look at what they did, and you know, they played better and they did a better job. I'm the first to say it. My hat is off to Thomas and his group. They played great.

Q. You said you wish you did something different. What?
JIM FURYK: I think in the future, I'll work with The PGA of America and I'll work with basically our Ryder Cup committee and I think we'll keep improving. We'll keep growing.

I think that that process started in 2014, and Davis did a great job in 2016 leading us. I tried to take that ball and keep it rolling, and we didn't have the success we wanted, but I felt like, we made some strides in areas this year, and I'll help our captain in 2020 and I'll help him get better, as well.

Q. Obvious question: Justin was the only player to come on the team to The Open de France in July, scored four points. Should everybody have come in could you have asked people, told people?
JIM FURYK: To play The French Open? I had a lot of folks that came for a practise round, too, ten days after that French Open, as well. A lot of them are sitting up here.

Q. Competition is different, though.
JUSTIN THOMAS: Golf course is still the same.

JIM FURYK: When we played practise round, it was pretty close to The French Open. Phil was here eight days after. Everyone else was here 12 to 14 days after. It helped.

I mean, I guess I would say that would maybe take a little bit away from J.T. about how well he played this week. He's, I want to say, a gritty little guy -- that always used to make Corey Pavin mad, so we'll just say a gritty guy. Showed a lot of heart today playing Rory being McIlroy and flipping that around and getting us a point early. I think it was helpful being here at The French Open.

But no, I offered the invite and I had more players show up for that practise round than I could have hoped for, and we were prepared. I feel like we played our practise rounds and we understood the golf course. We got out-played.

Q. Question for Phil. You had a few words to say in 2014 --
PHIL MICKELSON: I don't see you. Yeah.

Q. You had a few words to say in Gleneagles in 2014 in this press conference. You lost by a bigger margin today. Is this better or worse?
PHIL MICKELSON: This is an awesome team and we had phenomenal leadership. We had great vice captains. And we were put as players in a position to succeed, and these guys up here are such great players; that if you put these players in a position to succeed, they most often will.

Unfortunately it didn't happen this week. But we had a very special week here. We'll continue to build on it, and improve in a couple of years, and this is a very meaningful, special team for me, personally, too, because our captain is one of, I think, the best people in golf, and somebody that I've always looked up to and cherished our friendship.

I thought that the way he brought everybody in together on decisions; I think that we -- you know, some of you might question some of the decisions, but everything was done with reason, input, thought through, and then it's up to us to execute, and we just didn't quite -- we didn't execute.

And let's be honest. The European side played some exquisite golf. I mean, it was some phenomenal golf, and they flat-out beat us. But they beat us on the course. I thought that this was really a special week for all of us, and we -- there have been two years, this year and 2006 with Tom Lehman, where it breaks my heart a little bit more than others, because those two, we didn't execute while we were given every opportunity to succeed.

Q. Can you talk about what The Ryder Cup has meant to you through the years?
PHIL MICKELSON: It's difficult to talk about it because it means so much to me over the years, and I did not play well this year. This could very well, realistically, be my last one.

But with these guys, I'm motivated now to work hard, to not go out on this note, and I'm motivated to play well these next two years to get back at Whistling Straits and to show what I can do in these events, because this week was not my best. I was not playing my best, and I spent more time hitting balls throughout the week than I have all year trying to find something that would click, and it's just been a struggle. The last month has been a struggle, ever since I shot 63 right before being picked, I've struggled.

Q. Paul McGinley on the SKY broadcast suggested that your team wasn't prepared for the examination of Le Golf National. What would your thoughts be on that?
JIM FURYK: You know, we're going to get second-guessed and we're going to get questioned. I realise as a leader of this team and as a captain, the brunt of it is going to be on my plate and I accepted that when I took this role.

You know, we came over here and played our practise rounds and prepped for this golf course, and I have -- I'm going to say it over and over and over again: I have every confidence in these 12 players that you could. I think we have a great team. I would take them right back into another Ryder Cup and play it all over again if I could. You can call me crazy, but I have every belief that these guys could get it done. I still do and I still would again. You know, Paul has his opinions; he's a friend, actually. He was a very good captain. He's got to do his job.

Q. You always come to Europe as a favourite, and every time you lose, is it getting to be kind of a trauma?
JIM FURYK: It's just golf. Golf isn't traumatic. You know, obviously there's a sour taste in our mouth to come over here now for 27 years and not be able to win on foreign soil. That's the goal. We want to be successful in this event. We want to grow and we want to get better, but we want to do it here in Europe. That will be the goal four years from now.

Q. Could you give us your feelings at the end of the week?
TIGER WOODS: Well, we didn't -- we obviously didn't win the Cup. We didn't execute like we had planned and wanted to.

For me personally, I went 0-4. Obviously very disappointing. Those are four points that aren't going towards our side. It's going towards their side. To have a Ryder Cup end that way, for me personally, it doesn't feel very good because I didn't help my teammates earn any points. At the end of the day, we came here as a team and we win or lose, and unfortunately we lost this one.

Q. A question for the rookies, Tony, J.T. and Bryson. Actually, it's a tough start for you guys for The Ryder Cup. Is there anything positive that you can take out of this, winning your singles matches, all three of you, and how can you describe your feelings about this venue and the start for you for The Ryder Cup?
JUSTIN THOMAS: Personally for me, it doesn't matter what you do in singles. We all said that last night and I think that's such a -- it's such a cool thing that people outside of our team room can't see is, yeah, we were at a spot that was very behind the 8-ball, but it was also something that has been done before.

And we all -- I mean, it was kind of funny because all of us were saying, look, like I'll gladly lose my match if the rest of the team wins, and everyone kept saying it and all of a sudden we realised 10 or 11 people said they would gladly lose their match if the rest of the team won.

Everyone that's playing up here and sitting up here are such great team players. You know, I would gladly go 0-5 every Ryder Cup my entire career if that means we win every single time that we play. It's not a fun feeling, like Tiger said. You know, you come here to win, and we didn't.

But for me personally, it was nerves, experience, atmosphere, unlike anything I've ever come close to experiencing in my career, in my life, and two years definitely can't come quick enough, that's for sure.

TONY FINAU: Can you guys hear me?

JORDAN SPIETH: Yeah, it's a microphone (laughing).

TONY FINAU: I'm proud of our guys. I'm proud of our guys. I'm proud of our captains. It's been an incredible week, just in a sense that, just like J.T. mentioned, I haven't felt nerves and this type of excitement in a golf tournament, ever. And to be able to play on this team, to play with these guys, play under captain Jim Furyk, all guys that I look up to, all guys that I respect, has been nothing short of incredible for me.

This is not an incredible feeling right now, because we lost. We come here as a team; we win and lose as a team. So the individual accolades don't mean a lot.

But it's been a cool experience for me, and I'm proud to be on this team, and I'm proud of our guys. We battled. We had an opportunity. You know, we talked over it last night and we had an opportunity to do something special today. Unfortunately that didn't happen. But as Jim mentioned, we have 12 unbelievable golfers on this team, and to have my name in the mix, just as a rookie this year, is an incredible experience for me.

BRYSON DeCHAMBEAU: I'll go -- figures. Look, this didn't end the way we wanted it to, for sure, and I can truly say, this will be my first Ryder Cup; I couldn't be more proud of these guys, the way they fought, the way they played. We never gave up, and that's what I tried to do, my best today, is to not give up; knowing on 14 that we had lost the Ryder Cup, it was tough to fight on.

But I had a lot of great support out there. The vice captains, Zach, Matt, Davis, Steve, DD, y'all still kept pushing me along, and teammates, Jordan, right there -- where is he -- there, yeah, thanks for pushing me along, appreciate it.

JORDAN SPIETH: (Giving thumbs up.)

BRYSON DECHAMBEAU: Bubba, and it wasn't just me, it was believing in everyone.

You know, even though we lost, we're still a team. We're still a family and that's what I appreciated most about this week is that no matter what, we still fought and we fought as a family, and I couldn't be more honoured. And again, like J.T. said, two years can't come quick enough.

Q. Obviously a couple of months ago, you probably couldn't have envisioned being here, let alone all you accomplished. Wondering if at all this week it finally took its toll on you personally, the effect on your game and your health, and also just how much you kind of need a break at this point.
TIGER WOODS: Yeah, I mean, I played seven out of nine weeks, because I qualified for Akron and you know, all of those are big events, starting with The Open Championship. You've got a World Golf Championships, you've got another major championship, you've got the Playoffs and then you have The Ryder Cup on the back side.

So a lot of big events, and a lot of focus, a lot of energy goes into it. I was fortunate enough to have won one, and we were all coming here on a high and feeling great about our games, about what we were doing, and excited about playing this week.

For me, it's been a lot of golf for a short period of time. I'll have a better understanding of what my training needs to be for next year so that I certainly can endure the entire season because this year was very much up in the air of how much I would play or if I would play at all.

Q. Patrick and/or Jordan. You guys had quite a bit of success in the past playing together. Just curious if either of you were surprised that you didn't play together this week, and did that topic ever come up?
PATRICK REED: (Looking at Jordan; Jordan looking back at Patrick, both smiling).

JORDAN SPIETH: No, we weren't -- we were totally involved with every decision that was made. This was a -- Jim allowed it to be a player-friendly environment, and we were involved and we thought that the teams that came out of our, you know, four-man squad, what do we call it, fire team -- what is it, Tiger? We thought that we had two teams -- too tired to talk, Tiger. We had two potentially fantastic teams, and we went out and -- we went out confidently and tried to play our best.

JIM FURYK: If I may, we put all four of those players out together in practise for most of the week, I think two of the three days. They were always a grouping, and I talked about it in the press room after the first day of pairings; we felt like we've got two really good pairings. Jordan and Patrick have been great in the past. I felt like, you know, whether that's a point of contention or not, I felt like we had two great pairings out of it. So it was totally my decision and my call, and I think I had a few of you tell me that -- I think someone used the word, it was a gutsy -- they might have said something else, but a gutsy call or a gutsy play, but the one I thought it was the right thing to do. It was my call.

STEVE TODD: Thank you for joining us, Team USA.

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