He may sport a sub-.500 record in the biennial matches, but that hasn’t diminished Tiger Woods’ hopes of one day becoming a Ryder Cup captain.
“One day that would be fantastic,” Woods told Europeans reporters Monday at the Turkish Airlines World Golf Final. “It would be a huge honor; hopefully it doesn’t happen in the near future. I would like to be able to play for a lot more teams, but certainly one day, when my career is slowing down or it’s over, it would be huge to be part of a Ryder Cup from the captaincy side.”
The world No. 2 is playing in this week’s eight-man event in Belek, Turkey, his first tournament since the Americans’ final-day collapse at the Ryder Cup. Woods has drawn criticism for his 0-3-1 performance at Medinah – which ran his career record to 13-17-3 – but he confirmed the report Monday that he gathered the rookies afterward and apologized for not earning enough points for the team.
“I had an opportunity to earn three points in team sessions, but I did not do that. It was tough,” Woods said. “(Partner Steve Stricker) and I went out there and tried to earn points for the team and didn’t do that and it was frustrating.
“We had a four-point lead and we went 0-3. If we could have earned a couple of points, it would have been a pretty good lead going into Sunday’s singles.”
Captain Davis Love III said last week that he had heard from Woods the Monday after the Ryder Cup, and that Woods hadn’t slept the previous night.
As Woods told reporters today, “It probably did not set in for a few days because I had two sick kids to take care of. I was focusing on them. Then I started to talk to my friends, guys on the team, and once it started sinking in, the position we were in and what had transpired, it got a little tough for a couple of days.
“Then, like anything, it’s a tournament loss and you have to move on to the next event.”
