International side faces unenviable task at Medinah
Captains Geoff Ogilvy and Brandt Snedeker – image courtesy of Getty Images
The 16th edition of the Presidents Cup gets underway on Thursday at the Medinah Golf Club in Illinois, the International side still in the process of making the event a bona fide contest having won only one of the previous encounters and forced a tie on one other.
The Americans have therefore won 13 of the 15 times the two sides have met, including the last eleven in succession. Those stats suggest this week’s event will be a one-sided procession, although not all of the American victories have been as dominant as the records suggest.
The Internationals came close to victory when they lost by just one point in Incheon, Korea in 2015, a last-round battle between Sang Moon Bae and Jay Haas having the Internationals in with a real chance of sharing honours for the second occasion before Bae made an agonising mess of the final hole at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club in front of his home fans.
In 2019, the event was played at Royal Melbourne, and the Internationals took a 10-8 lead into Sunday’s singles before being run down 8-4 and losing 16 -14.
The closest of encounters, therefore, including the win and the tie, have come at International venues, suggesting the Medinah Golf Club gives the Americans an even greater advantage than their ranking strength alone.
As is the case with the Ryder and Solheim Cups, the USA side enters the event as the heavy favourite as a result of their superiority in terms of world rankings. The USA side can boast that nine of their 12-man side are currently inside the top 20 in the world rankings, while the Internationals have only Si Woo Kim (14th) in that category.
Not that world rankings are the only barometer for success. Both the Solheim and Ryder Cups have been won more regularly in recent years by the less credentialed side mathematically, but the numbers in this week’s encounter are so heavily weighted in the favour of the Americans it is hard to see the Internationals mounting a serious contest.
The decision by Ernie Els in 2019 to introduce a shield to assist the International side in unifying under a common theme has perhaps assisted the side in overcoming the wide range of countries it represents and providing a rallying cry and a clearer identity for a team which regularly faces a very partisan American side and their fans was noble. That will be further the case this week, given the event is played about an hour west of Chicago.
Australian Geoff Ogilvy gets his chance to join fellow Australians Peter Thomson, Greg Norman and David Graham as team captains for the Internationals, the 2006 US Open winner and eight-time PGA Tour titleholder adding further benefit to the side given his role in his design team’s redesign at Medinah although that is unlikely to play too great a part in the team’s chances.
Whether his appointment is a poison chalice remains to be seen, but Ogilvy’s record, forthright manner and ownership of his own decisions suggest he will not back off from making the many hard decisions that will come his way during Cup week.
If there is one nugget that the Internationals could hope to utilise this week, it is that the USA side have to face either the Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup every year, and whether the typically one-sided nature of this particular contest creates apathy and complacency might just provide some hope of a contest at least, but, in all reality, it would seem the outcome of the 2026 Presidents Cup is a foregone conclusion.
A side that can leave out J.J. Spaun and Gary Woodland must be very good.
I would dearly like to see a different outcome, but it is hard to imagine it.
