{"id":19891,"date":"2026-06-12T11:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T11:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/19891\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T11:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T11:32:07","slug":"paul-azinger-proposes-new-ryder-cup-leadership-role-for-u-s-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/19891\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Azinger proposes new Ryder Cup leadership role for U.S. team"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 12, 2026, 7:02 a.m. ET<\/p>\n

Paul Azinger is proposing a new “director of Ryder Cup” role to improve Team USA’s performance.Azinger was motivated by a story from Kevin Kisner that highlighted Team USA being out-prepared.He has pitched his idea to PGA CEO Terry Clark and discussed it with 2027 captain Jim Furyk.Furyk supports the concept, comparing it to a general manager role in other professional sports.<\/p>\n

DUBLIN, Ohio \u2013 Paul Azinger is fed up with seeing the U.S. side get taken to the woodshed by the Europeans at the Ryder Cup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To illustrate his point, the four-time member of Team USA recounts watching 2025 U.S. vice-captain Kevin Kisner on the ForePlay podcast<\/a> detailing the moment he knew Team USA was in trouble at Bethpage Black last fall en route to digging a huge deficit and an eventual 15-13 defeat on home soil. At the sixth hole, Tommy Fleetwood drove it in the rough in an alternate-shot match the first day on purpose so that Rory McIlroy didn\u2019t have to worry about the spin on his approach to the soft green. McIlroy stuck it tight for birdie and the Euros were on their way to a 5-and -4 rout. Wrapping up the story, Kisner said, \u201cI got on the radio and said, \u2018Boys, I think we\u2019re (expletive).\u201d Laughter ensued.<\/p>\n

\u201cI watched it and I was mortified,\u201d Azinger told\u00a0Golfweek. \u201cYou had weeks to be ready and you were out-prepared. That can\u2019t happen ever again on our home soil. Seeing that video irritated me to no end. I didn\u2019t think it was funny; I thought it was awful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"U.S.<\/p>\n

Azinger, who captained the U.S. side to a resounding victory in 2008, has a plan to fix Team USA. Hire a director of Ryder Cup above the captain, sort of like how college programs have recently been adding a general manager to oversee the bigger picture (Andrew Luck for Stanford football or\u00a0Adrian Wojnarowski for St. Bonaventure\u00a0University men\u2019s basketball). And they don\u2019t need a Task Force to search for the right candidate. Azinger is the man for the job.<\/p>\n

As previously reported by\u00a0Golf Diges<\/a>t, Azinger pitched the idea to new PGA CEO Terry Clark at the Senior PGA Championship in April. Azinger tells\u00a0Golfweek\u00a0that he and Clark and 2027 U.S. Ryder Cup captain Jim Furyk had some informal conversations lasting about 10-15 minutes at The Memorial Tournament last week. Azinger, 66, is still waiting to see if the PGA is serious about a permanent role and then he\u2019d have to decide if he\u2019d be so inclined to do it.<\/p>\n

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Azinger said he has a standing offer to meet up with Furyk, who lives in Jacksonville, next time he\u2019s in town to broadcast PGA Tour Champions for Golf Channel from the Tour\u2019s studios in nearby Ponte Vedra Beach.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants to cook me up a steak dinner \u2014 he says he\u2019s a good cook \u2014 and pick my brain,\u201d Azinger said.<\/p>\n

Whether in a formal or informal role, Azinger wants to study how to be prepared for a road game. The U.S. hasn\u2019t won on foreign soil since 1993 with a 33-year-old Azinger among the U.S. 12-man team. Azinger lobbied to remain captain in 2010 and try to win an away game but the PGA opted to go with Corey Gavin and Azinger has spent the last decade wondering how it has all gone wrong. He didn\u2019t want to divulge any secrets, but he does want to share with Furyk his vision for developing a mindset of preparation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just need a little spark to pull a major upset,\u201d Azinger said. \u201cI told Furyk, ‘You\u2019re in a great place to make history, bud.'”<\/p>\n

To hear Azinger tell it, Furyk, who was on the losing end as captain in 2018 in Paris, is the right man for the job. He\u2019s seen both sides of the Ryder Cup and brings knowledge and experience to the job. Azinger said he lobbied behind the scenes to give Davis Love III another chance after the U.S. loss in 2014 and that worked out pretty well. Then Azinger posed a rhetorical question.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho else could we have put as captain? Why would you scar Justin Leonard or Stewart Cink? You have to put someone who has been there, done that, because we\u2019re not supposed to win there,\u201d Azinger said. \u201cIf Furyk loses, he\u2019s a two-time loser. He\u2019s going up against a buttoned-up three-time captain (in Luke Donald), they have the confidence, we have the jet lag. That is a no-win situation with everything to gain. To me, the upside is worth it. If he pulls it off, then 20 years of his life dedicated to the Ryder Cup finally comes to fruition. I want to be involved in some capacity in making that a reality; I just don\u2019t want the spotlight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Captain<\/p>\n

Furyk was on Azinger\u2019s 2008 team and speaks glowingly about him as a captain, and agrees that the PGA should begin treating the Ryder Cup team more like a professional sports organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat usually includes someone that sits above the coach of the team,\u201d Furyk said. \u201cAs captain, you\u2019re worried about a lot of other things. The manager of the Yankees doesn\u2019t worry about a lot of that stuff. He worries about X\u2019s and O\u2019s, team-building and how the personalities mesh. Having a bigger picture look on top of things and taking some of the background work off of the captain would be very useful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furyk added that he has been talking about a similar style role for Team USA for several years during in-house discussions with the U.S. brain trust of Davis Love III and Steve Stricker, who could be future Ryder Cup GMs. When Furyk read Azinger\u2019s original comments to\u00a0Golf Digest, he immediately reached out to Azinger and said, \u201cYou\u2019re spot on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Europe has a little of that. No one talks about it, but they have a board with Paul McGinley and Thomas Bjorn and a bunch of guys sit and quietly go about their business and do it well. We like to announce everything,\u201d Furyk told Golfweek with a wry grin.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

When asked for a comment on a possible role for Azinger, PGA CEO Terry Clark sent the following e-mail response: \u201cAs we work with Jim and our Ryder Cup leadership team to build the strongest possible U.S. Ryder Cup program for the future, we\u2019re focused on creating greater continuity across Ryder Cup cycles and establishing a structure that supports sustained Team USA success. As part of that effort, we are evaluating how former Captains, players and other experienced voices can continue to contribute to the U.S. Team. Paul Azinger\u2019s perspective and experience remain highly valued, and we look forward to continuing to engage him as an important member of the PGA of America and Ryder Cup family.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the PGA is serious about making winning the Ryder Cup trophy back a priority, it\u2019s time to let a full-time GM call the shots and there\u2019s no better person to take the helm than Azinger, the man who wrote a business-manual book on how he got it done.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Adam Schupak<\/a>\u00a0is a senior writer for Golfweek, covering the PGA Tour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"June 12, 2026, 7:02 a.m. ET Paul Azinger is proposing a new “director of Ryder Cup” role to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[552,58,59,1643,1644,65,68,2214,80,8324,193,1239,1645,67,187,62],"class_list":["post-19891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ryder-cup","tag-ryder-cup","tag-accessfree","tag-sourcegolfweek","tag-sstssportsgolfryder-cup","tag-sstsnthe-ryder-cup","tag-taggolf","tag-taginternational-sports-competitions","tag-tagjim-furyk","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagpaul-azinger","tag-tagpga-tour","tag-tagrory-mcilroy","tag-tagryder-cup","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagstory-highlights-ai-enabled","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}