Because of the environmental problems, water hydraulic system is introduced an alternative driving source for many applications. However, typical properties of water make the water hydraulic system difficult to be controlled; for example, the system contains parameters uncertainty and strong nonlinearity. This paper proposed the proportional-integral-derivative funnel control (PID-FC) with future distance estimation for the water hydraulic servo motor velocity control. The controller utilizes the evident merit of future distance estimation for control signal generation. This control strategy requires no system identification, and can ensure not only the transient response behavior but also the steady-state error of the system using predefined arbitrary funnel boundaries. The simulation results show that the proposed controller has high efficiency to control the velocity of the water hydraulic servo motor system. The proposed controller shows better control performance especially during the transient operation compared with the conventional PID-FC. Additionally, the controller is stable and robust for the case that dead-zone effects of servo valve are included.