Jim Furyk is back as a captain of a match, but this time he will face the entire world.
The PGA Tour Champions announced last week that the inaugural World Champions Cup will be held Dec. 7-10, at the Concession Golf Club Bradenton. This event will feature 50 players and more from the U.S. and Europe as well as an international team.
Ernie Els, the South African captain, will captain the International team. The European captain is Darren Clarke from Northern Ireland. Furyk, Clarke and Els are all former Ryder Cup Captains. Els was the captain of the 2019 International Presidents Cup Team. All three captains will play.
The event will air on ABC and ESPN. Peter Jacobsen will chair the event. He is a seven-time PGA Tour champion and TV golf analyst.
Miller Brady, PGA Tour Champions president, said in a press release that the World Champions Cup was a great addition to golf and the PGA Tour Champions calendar. This competition will provide fans with a unique and exciting opportunity to watch the world’s top golfers compete on a global platform. Ernie, Jim, and Darren represent golf around the world, and it’ll be exciting to see them and their team compete to win the World Champions Cup.
Darren Clarke, of Northern Ireland, during the first round of The Senior Open Presented By Rolex on July 22, 2020, at Sunningdale Golf Club in Sunningdale. (Photo by Stephen Pond/Getty Images).
Each match will consist of nine-hole matches, with a total 24 holes.
Five additional players will be added to each team, who are all PGA Tour Champions active members. The top two players in the WCC career-based rankings will receive automatic invitations to each team, and two additional spots are reserved for Chairman’s Picks.
Final spots for Team USA and Team Europe, as well as Team International are determined by the Charles Schwab Cup results at year’s end.
Concession Golf Club is named after Jack Nicklaus famous concession of the final putt at the 1969 Ryder Cup, which resulted in the first tie ever in this event’s history. Nicklaus and Jacklin collaborated on the design of the course, which hosted the PGA Tour’s 2021 World Golf Championships-Workday Championship and the 2015 Men’s and Women’s NCAA Division I championships.
Furyk has won 17 times in the PGA Tour. He also played in nine Ryder Cups, seven Presidents Cups. He was the U.S. Ryder Cup Captain in 2018.
Furyk stated in a press release that he was “honored” to be leading Team USA on the global stage of the World Champions Cup. It has been a great honor to be a part of Team USA throughout my career. I am looking forward to the opportunity to be captain of Team USA, and to compete against Ernie & Darren with whom I have walked fairways together for over 20 years.
