For U.S. Ryder Cup fans, Jim Furyk just said three things that should make you feel good about Adare Manor

The One-Year-To-Go press conference is not always a very engaging day in the larger Ryder Cup calendar. That's increasingly true in our current era, when the culture of secrecy around tournament strategy rivals something you might see in Langley or Vauxhall Cross. At Adare Manor on Tuesday, though, U.S. captain Jim Furyk said just enough to give some reassurance to American fans who might be understandably shaken after a disastrous first three days at the Presidents Cup and relieved very little by the comeback in Sunday singles. On the heels of the Bethpage nightmare, spirits sank to new and hellish depths, but on Tuesday, I found nothing to shake me from the belief that at this moment of low ebb, Furyk was the best choice the PGA of America could have made for captain.

The United States will be massive underdogs in 2027, having failed to win on European soil in more than 30 years. Yet based on this presser and everything I've seen in the past year, I still believe the Americans have a chance to rewrite history and win. Call me delusional, but here are three things I liked from Furyk:

He knows he's the underdog—and he's embracing it

On some level, this should be obvious to everyone. Again, the Americans haven't won in Europe since 1993, and the Europeans have won four times in America in that stretch. They're just better at this thing. On the other hand, it's also true that for most of those Ryder Cups, the U.S. came in with the better players, whether you measure by major wins, World Ranking or on-course statistics. Vegas, perhaps not paying attention to history, made the U.S. betting favorites over and over as the losses piled up. And many of those American teams seemed to buy into that notion of their supremacy, if only in the sense that they never worked as hard as the Europeans at the preparation and tactical part of the Ryder Cup. It's as if they expected the statistical anomaly of European victory to revert to the mean, since the American cold spell could only be explained by bad luck. As such, they routinely forfeited whatever underdog role should have been available to them and the hard preparatory work that embracing the status would entail.

Furyk knows that Europe's success isn't some accident of a rogue coin flipping to tails more than it should; he’s already experienced it first hand as a captain at Le Golf National in 2018. And because he knows that, he knows that yes, the Americans truly are underdogs and any rational analysis would conclude that they are likely to lose at Adare Manor.

To some, that might sound defeatist, but I'd argue that it's a necessary step in the thought process if he can ever begin building a team capable of defying the odds.

"We're the underdogs," he said. "I know it's always been played, we come in, the Americans seem to be the favorites. This year, there's no chance that that could happen. We're the underdogs. We understand that. We've got a lot of work ahead of us. And you know, I'm excited about that process. I'm a process guy and kind of ducks in a row and put these guys in a good position and let our guys go out and show their talent."

There is some truth to the narrative value of being an underdog, which is why Europe won't cede it easily. I thought Luke Donald was absolutely correct when he said Tuesday that for the Europeans, being an underdog is a permanent mentality. It's one of their great strengths—they always feel like the little guy in the shadow of the American juggernaut, and they always have something to prove. They don't "care more" on the actual course on a player-to-player basis, but their bone-deep need to defeat the Americans has given them a logistical and managerial edge over the years. Necessity being the mother of invention, life as the underdog has motivated them to find the little edges that matter. No amount of wins can shake that identity; they could win 20 of these things in a row, and they'd never grow complacent.

Furyk can't change that, and neither captain seemed especially gung-ho on fighting the "who's the real underdog?" war. But he knows that if the Americans can adopt the underdog role convincingly inside the team room, far from spreading despair, it will give a spiritual boost to his players and caddies, unite them as a team in a hostile environment, and—perhaps most importantly—inculcate both himself, his vice captains and all his statistical aides and PGA of America staff with a special urgency. The belief that only thorough and intelligent preparation will be sufficient to change the script of how things should go in Ireland.

Because as long as you believe that "they just putted better" serves as a total explanation, why change anything?

He's taking the foursomes problem very seriously

When asked about the Americans' 8-26 record in foursomes over the last four team events dating back to the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome, Furyk knew the numbers by heart. He also correctly noted that it's a recent problem for the Americans, who have excelled at foursomes at Whistling Straits in 2021 and Hazeltine in 2016 and historically struggled more in fourball when Furyk was playing in Ryder Cups. But the most important words that came out of his mouth on the topic were these:

"It's not an anomaly."

As in, the fact that the U.S. used to be proficient at foursomes isn't some excuse he's cooking up so that he can sit back and reassure himself that next time will probably be better. He's attacking the problem, and while we don't know the full picture of that entails yet, he left no doubt as to whether it was a priority.

"It's not something I'm very happy with," he said. "I plan on making some changes. I would say, one, as captains, we need to do a better job, not only put the folks into good pairings in good positions, but I don't think we are preparing for those matches in a proper way. And I will promise you, we will be prepared. I'm going to ask this team to do more than any other United States team has in the past. We'll be prepared. We'll be ready to go in that format, and hopefully we can showcase our talent. We have too much depth to have that poor record in alternate shot."

What does that look like? Practicing together at Adare Manor, for one, and when a reporter jokingly asked him if he'd have Scottie Scheffler practice with 12 guys to find a good pair, he didn't take it as a joke, saying instead that some practicing was definitely in order.

We'll learn more about what that preparation means in the next 12 months, but there's more than a little relief in the fact that his mind is in the right place.

He's learned the right lessons from Paris

One of the most interesting exchanges came when a reporter asked him about the changes he intended to make in the pairing process. What's most important, personality or statistics? Furyk, though, had a third answer.

"I think you start with the golf course, personally," he said. "What are you trying to accomplish? What is that course asking of the player?"

The story has been told a million times by now, but to rehash, in 2018 Furyk felt his hand was forced into taking captain's picks at the Paris Ryder Cup who didn't seem suited to the tight fairways and heavy rough of Le Golf National. The one pick they felt could excel in that environment because of his long irons, Tony Finau, went 2-1. The other three went 0-9-0. It wasn't the only reason they lost to the Europeans that year, but it was a pretty big one.

That particular failure is the reason many people objected to Furyk being handed the reins again, and you can understand in the long historical context of American captains seeming oblivious to their past mistakes. However, Furyk seems to have internalized the lesson, and because of how much it clearly resonates in his memory, he's probably the last person on earth who would repeat the mistake.

He understands the important of analytics (in fact, analytics and course fit are not a separate consideration), and he understands the importance of personality. Paris, ultimately, feels like the exact kind of schooling he needed to make the necessary decisions in 2027 for an Adare Manor course that may end up looking pretty similar to Le Golf National.

"I'm going to start with the golf course with you right off the bat," he repeated. "What's it asking for, in both formats, whether it's fourball or foursomes, and then you start planning accordingly in that case."

As a last matter, Furyk spoke repeatedly about the team around him, from his analytics crew to his vice captains, who right now include Stewart Cink and Justin Leonard. If there's something to look closely at in the next few months, it's how he fills out that inner circle. Operating under the old principles of constraint that hamstrung him in Paris—what you should do—he'd probably have to take on Keegan Bradley and Brandt Snedeker, who were (charitably) not up to the task in the last two captaincies and, in my opinion, shouldn't be within a mile of this team. Unconstrained, Furyk can go a different way, and that decision will be the next sign post for the over-analyzers among us who want to learn more about the governing principles underlying the Furyk captaincy, but who are heartened by what we heard at Adare Manor on Tuesday.