It’s Ryder Cup week!
If you’re a golfer, you likely understand the importance the Ryder Cup has on professional golf.
If you’re not a golfer, here’s a brief explanation of the Ryder Cup. 
Every two years, since 1927, a match play contest is held between professional men’s golf teams from the United States and Europe. The location alternates between golf courses in the United States and Europe, and the first team that earns 14.5 points, wins the event. This weekend the event will take place in Italy with the United States holding a 27-14-2 advantage over Team Europe.
Naturally, there’s more to this event than that quick explanation including drama, strategy, and infighting among professional golf tours (i.e., PGA Tour vs. LIV Golf). All the greats have played in the Ryder Cup – Tiger, Seve, Arnie, Sergio, Jack, Rory, Phil, Faldo, Payne, Monty, and Fred Funk.
Yep, that Fred Funk, the design consultant of RainDance National Resort & Golf in Windsor, CO. Funk has teed it up in a Ryder Cup.
Funk was automatically selected to the 2004 United States team after finishing 9th on the PGA Tour regular season points list. Funk was 48 years old at the time, but wasn’t new to international team play as he represented the United States in the 2003 Presidents Cup, captained by Jack Nicklaus, and secured 1.5 points with a 1-2-1 record. The event ended in a tie. He also participated on the victorious 2005 Presidents Cup team. (The Presidents Cup is a similar match play contest pitting the United States against a team of international players, not including Europeans.)
Nearly two decades after his lone Ryder Cup appearance, Funk still has passionate memories of the 35th Ryder Cup held at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Township, Michigan.
“I was playing the best golf of my career for about four to five years and making the Ryder Cup was something I would have never dreamed of,” Funk said from his home in Florida. “Representing the USA is as good as it gets. It’s a pretty elite group.”
The field was elite, indeed. The 2004 U.S. team was captained by Hal Sutton and featured legendary players such as Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Davis Love III, Jim Furyk, Kenny Perry, David Toms, Chad Campbell, Chris DiMarco, Chris Riley, Jay Haas, and Stewart Cink. The defending champion European team was also packed with stars. Led by captain Bernhard Langer, the team was made up of Padraig Harrington, Sergio Garcia, Darren Clarke, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Lee Westwood, Thomas Levet, Paul Casey, David Howell, Paul McGinley, Ian Poulter, Luke Donald, and Colin Montgomerie.
While the Europeans completely dominated the weekend and retained the trophy with an 18-1/2 to 9-1/2 win, the largest margin of victory since 1981, Funk was thrilled to be included.
“Even though by points we got slaughtered, but what isn’t mentioned was I believe 11 matches went to the 18th hole and we won only four of those if I remember correctly,” said the 8-time PGA Tour winner.
Funk sat out the Friday morning four-ball session when Europe raced out to a 3-1/2 to ½ lead. The U.S. team didn’t hold a lead on any of the first day’s four-ball matches, a round that was highlighted by the star-studded, yet controversial pairing of Woods and Mickelson against Montgomerie and Harrington.
“We never got momentum after a very disappointing morning session,” said Funk. “Having Phil and Tiger play together was, in my opinion, a bad idea. Phil was in the early stage of a Callaway contract and was testing clubs and golf balls during the week. He wasn’t at the golf course when we were practicing.
“I personally would have never put those two together unless they both came to me and said they wanted to play together.” (Click HERE to see a 2022 interview Funk gave to Golf Magazine about the Phil/Tiger pairing.)
Funk’s Ryder Cup debut occurred during the afternoon foursomes when he and Love III took on Montgomerie and Harrington. The Europeans birdied the first hole, and never surrendered the lead to eventually win 4 & 2. Europe took a 6-1/2 to 1-1/2 lead into the second day.
“I’ve never felt that kind of pressure on the first tee before,” he said. “The first tee jitters were pretty enormous.”
During the Saturday afternoon four-ball, Funk was paired with Furyk against Garcia and Donald. The match was back and forth all day with the Americans losing 1 up.
The U.S. team was down 11 to 5 entering Sunday singles matches and 12 points on the line. Even before Funk’s match against Levet was final, Europe had already secured the necessary 14-1/2 points to retain the Cup. Fred lost to Levet 1 up and finished his first and only Ryder Cup experience with a 0-3-0 record.
“Thomas and I are really good friends,” Funk said of his singles match against the Frenchman. “He recently showed me a video on his phone from our match. We were playing a par 3 and I hit it to like a foot, or two feet, and he knocked it inside me. They were both gimmies. It was pretty cool.”
Funk continued, “We were even going into 18, and the tournament was already over, and here’s Sergio running down the fairway with the Spanish flag. Our match didn’t matter, and Thomas asked (Captain) Bernhard Langer that we should just call our match a tie, and Bernhard said, ‘no, play it.’” I thought that was a nice gesture from Thomas. We played it and I lost the hole.”
While the personal results weren’t what Funk was expecting, his participation was a career highlight.
“It’s maybe the best highlight of my career,” he said. “To make a Ryder Cup team means you were playing a lot of really good golf. It wasn’t a one-week deal. That was three years in a row (one Ryder Cup and two Presidents Cup) of making a team. But for that Ryder Cup, even though we lost, the experience was great. The team room was always exciting, even though things weren’t going well on the course.”
At the time, Funk had put together a solid career, however, the best was yet to come. Two weeks after playing in the Ryder Cup, Funk won his sixth event, the Southern Farm Bureau Classic, in Jackson, Mississippi, with a score of 22-under. And the next March he won The Players Championship, but that’s a tale for a future blog.
“Winning an event right after was just a confidence thing for me,” he said. “I really started to own my golf swing and was comfortable believing that I was as good as anybody out there. I felt that my good game was good enough to win. I made a lot of cuts and top 25s during that time. I expected to play well and got myself in position and didn’t back down too often.
“That’s when golf was easy.”
Tee Times Starting at 9 a.m.
12 p.m. – 5 p.m. Monday | 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday
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