Tiger Woods' Ryder Cup fitness concerns dismissed by Jim Furyk
Woods, partnering Patrick Reed, suffered fourball loss to Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood
Friday 28 September 2018 20:05, UK
United States captain Jim Furyk has dismissed concerns about the fitness of Tiger Woods after he was omitted from the Americans' Ryder Cup foursomes line-up on Friday afternoon.
There were suggestions that Woods was suffering from a back problem when he did not feature in the second session after suffering a defeat alongside Patrick Reed to Europe's Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood in the morning fourballs.
Woods, who has made a remarkable comeback to form following spinal fusion surgery, struggled to find his rhythm in that loss and the US pair faded on the back nine.
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But the 42-year-old, who was spotted on the driving range late on Friday afternoon, will be back in action in Saturday morning's fourballs when he and Reed will once again take on Molinari and Fleetwood.
"I have not heard that he's had a back problem, so I would say that that's not true," said Furyk. "You'd have to ask Tiger, but no, I saw him out on the golf course. He said he was all good.
"He was actually out practising tonight after the matches. I think any time Tiger draws so much attention - any time Tiger doesn't play, or maybe he stretches a little bit, everyone gets a little hypersensitive that he might have a back issue.
"But I am not aware of anything like that, and I didn't get any information like that from Tiger or my vice-captains, so I don't believe that's true."
In Woods' absence, the USA suffered a 4-0 whitewash in the foursomes and are 5-3 down following the opening day, but Furyk expects them to recover from that mauling.
"I think our guys will respond, I really do," he said. "I have a lot of confidence in this team. I think that obviously it's going to leave a sour taste in their mouth tonight and they have to sleep on that. We'll come back tomorrow, and I bet we'll be fine.
"We got the momentum in the morning, out 3-1. Europe flipped it quickly and got some unbelievable momentum in the afternoon for 4-0. So two totally different sides in the morning and the afternoon.
"You've got to look at it, we played for eight points so far out of 28. The event's still pretty young. We've got one more team format tomorrow and then the singles. Eight out of 28, a pretty small percentage of this golf tournament has been played."
Furyk defended the decision to play Phil Mickelson in foursomes alongside rookie Bryson DeChambeau, despite Mickelson ranking 192nd out of 193 players for driving accuracy on the PGA Tour.
"He's got a lot of experience," Furyk said of the five-time major winner. "Most experienced Ryder Cup player of all time. I think his fourball record is a little better than his foursomes, but I realise the golf course is tight.
"I realise you have to hit a lot of fairways but it's also a place where you're probably not hitting a lot of drivers if you're Phil Mickelson and you're hitting a lot of three-woods and a lot of irons.
"I've heard, I guess some of the rumblings and been aware their scores were pretty similar to pretty much the best scores we had on the team today [in foursomes].
"I have all the confidence in both of those players and I have so much confidence in Phil in his ability to take a young player like Bryson and help him out. And I'll be honest. I'd do it again. I have a lot of confidence in all 12."
