ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — It’s too early to tell what kind of Ryder Cup captain Zach Johnson will be in 2023 when the U.S. meets Europe Sept. 28-Oct. 1 at the Marco Simone Golf and Country Club near Rome.
That answer usually comes after the matches and fair or unfair, is almost always linked to whether a captain’s team won or lost.
But two-time Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III offered a hint.
“He’s already ahead of the game,” Love said. “He’s on it.”
Love was referring to the myriad of organizational details that a captain and his wife have to plow through in the year or so before the matches: uniforms for the players, outfits for the wives, golf bags, practice rounds, travel, corporate functions with sponsors and meetings upon meetings with the PGA of America, the governing body for the Ryder Cup.
“I love it all,” said Johnson, who has lived on St. Simons Island since 2006. “Anything to do with the Cup, I love it.”
And the captain also has an important job, especially in recent years: make sure the preparation and attending to detail is so exhaustive that the 12-man team can show up that week and focus on golf — and hopefully keep any soap operas to a minimum.
“I’m a guy that I can’t stand drama, so it’s going to be my goal to avoid that,” Johnson said during a news conference Wednesday at the Sea Island Club, the site of this week’s RSM Classic. “It’s not always easy, it’s not always practical, it’s not always going to happen. That’s No. 1. No. 2 would be I just want to give the guys the ability to enter the most uncomfortable week in a very comfortable manner.”
Team Captains Luke Donald of England and Zach Johnson of The United States pose for a photograph with the Ryder Cup Trophy at the Colosseum during the Ryder Cup 2023 Year to Go Media Event on October 04, 2022, in Rome. (Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images)
Breaking a 30-year road drought
Love and 2021 captain Steve Stricker have guided the U.S. to victories in two of the last three Ryder Cups, breaking a European domination in which that continent won three in a row, and six of seven.
But Johnson has another tall task: winning a road game. The U.S. last won in Europe in 1993 at The Belfry in England. When Europe won in 2018 in France, it was its sixth victory in a row on home soil.
The odds are that Johnson will have much the same star-packed team that won 19-9 at Whistling Straits in 2021.
Unless some kind of compromise is reached with…
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