Jim Furyk Not Committing to Tiger Playing in Ryder Cup

The 2018 PGA TOUR season has been defined by Tiger-mania, with Woods’ resurrection. Despite his success on TOUR, there’s a chance we won’t see him playing in the Ryder Cup; or will we?

Many fans have been excited for the Ryder Cup set to take place at the end of the year in Paris and with how well guys have been playing this year, decisions of who will take a spot for each team is up for question. The U.S. Captain Jim Furyk is in a tough spot deciding which American players to take to France when the tournament kicks off.

Furyk isn’t committing to anyone outside of the eight members that are guaranteed a spot on the team based on play. And among those he won’t guarantee a spot is Tiger Woods. Woods has been on fire since returning from injury and his off-course issues, with eight top 25 finishes in the 12 tournaments he has participated in. Still, that hasn’t been enough to earn him a top-eight spot yet.

U.S. Team Captain’s Assistants Fred Couples, Jim Furyk and Tiger…

U.S. Team Captain’s Assistants Fred Couples, Jim Furyk and Tiger Woods share a laugh while deciding pairings following Thursday Foursomes on the first day of the Presidents Cup at Liberty National… Get premium, high resolution news photos at Getty Images

Speaking about the possibility of naming Tiger as one of his captain choices, Furyk said he won’t commit a spot to the former world number one. “I’m going to handle him the way I do everyone else,”‘ Furyk said in a recent interview. “I’ll ask my top eight guys. The way he’s playing, he might be one of them. I’ll ask the vice captains, collectively, and I think we’ll do the best we can to round out the team. We want the guys playing the best.

Regardless of if he is selected to play, Tiger will be in Paris anyway as a co-captain of the U.S. team. Currently, the team would consist of Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed, Justin Thomas, Bubba Watson, Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, and Webb Simpson. Of those Furyk would have to consider as captain choices outside of Tiger would be Matt Kuchar, Phil Mickelson, Tony Finau, and Bryson DeChambeau.

There is still a lot of room for movement in those standings with a lot of tournaments left to play in the season but it looks like Furyk will have some tough decisions to make as the clock runs down. If I had to guess, however, I’d expect to see Tiger teeing off with the team when they head to Paris. Only time will tell if I’m right.

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