Zach Johnson Reveals His 'Regrets' As the Losing Ryder Cup Captain
Six weeks have passed since the U.S. Ryder Cup team’s crushing loss to Team Europe at Marco Simone. The Americans hadn’t won on foreign soil in three decades, but the European margin of victory was shocking nonetheless. It was only a matter of time before questions arose: What went so wrong?
The man who captained the U.S. team that week in Rome apparently has some ideas.
On Tuesday at the RSM Classic, Zach Johnson addressed the media for the first time since his squad’s 16½-11½ loss, and he candidly detailed his “regrets” as team leader. Johnson, who resides in Sea Island, Ga., the site of the final PGA Tour fall event, was honest about how much the disappointing result still stings.
Zach Johnson reflected on the U.S. Ryder Cup team loss prior to the final PGA Tour event of 2023.
Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports
“I've got a lot of 20/20-hindsight things that I certainly think about. Arguably, some regrets,” Johnson said. “But I think again something of that magnitude, win or lose, you're going to have that, that's sports. And I think that's when you care, you're passionate about something, you're going to have those natural feelings.”
Speaking of specific regrets, Johnson mentioned several factors that he has re-evaluated since returning from his first Ryder Cup captaincy empty-handed. For starters, Johnson said that he would have liked to be more careful with his players’ time.
“The common denominator that I go back to that I wish I could have changed, or not changed, I wish it would have dawned on me earlier is just the pure commodity of time and understanding that it's precious. You know, we had the practice round trip. No regrets. Amazing. I don't think the guys would say they had any regrets in that, at least I hope they wouldn't. It was spectacular,” Johnson said. “If I could have put more value into time management, I could have put my guys in a better position to play golf at a better rate early on.
Even in the days leading up to the Ryder Cup and especially after the fact, the topic of “current form” was central to analyses of the event’s result.
Prior to the 2023 competition, all 12 members of the European team played the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, and seven placed in the top 10 of the DP World Tour event. On the American side, only Justin Thomas and Max Homa took the time to compete in PGA Tour events during the weeks leading up to the Ryder Cup. Brooks Koepka was obligated to play in LIV’s Chicago event, which ended just five days before the biennial event. The majority of the U.S. team chose to rest.
When Johnson mentioned “time management,” he wasn’t just alluding to creating more time for his players, but helping them use that time in an efficient and effective manner.
While the captain didn’t definitively place blame on his players’ lack of competitive sharpness heading into the event, he pondered how a different approach might have played out.
“Ideally you want to have some fresh guys. I don’t know if it's the captain's role to say, hey, you guys got to go play,” Johnson said. “I don't know if that's the proper way to approach it. Bottom line is the FedEx Cup takes a lot of time, energy and they need to rest, too. Some guys played Napa. There was only a couple I guess if I think back on it.”
“Yeah, there could be some truth in that. And you had their guys playing the BMW, which is one of their signature events. You had I think it was 10 or 12 that were like in the top 15, something like that, maybe even better than that, which is pretty ridiculous. You had that and you only had one time zone change for them to travel. Actually, a couple were on the same time zone. There's some merit to be said there, too.”
Johnson’s point about poor time management also seems to relate to travel and time zones, an issue he hopes that the PGA of America and the Ryder Cup can work on. But all in all, when it came down to the outcome of the biennial event, Johnson remained firm in his stance that it was anyone’s game.
“You never know, anybody can beat anybody at any given time,” Johnson said. “The fact of the matter is what we've kind of said here, I don't think I put my guys in the best position for success. Those guys on the European side were playing great golf and didn't have far to go.”