The Presidents Cup is at a crossroads. There are ways to turn, but it isn’t moving.
Captains Jim Furyk and Mike Weir would’ve received heat for whichever picks they chose for the event at Royal Montreal, but their actions have left me existentially considering the point of this tournament.
Justin Thomas wasn’t chosen to face the International side this time despite markedly improving this year. He reached the season-ending finale, the Tour Championship, which trumped his form in 2023 when he didn’t even make the FedEx Cup Playoffs and was chosen for the Ryder Cup in Italy.
Akshay Bhatia must be bitterly disappointed not to make Furyk’s team. The tour veteran and former US Open champion chose places 7 to 12 in the points rankings to fill his 12-man side, seemingly showing no imagination and leaving out this flamboyant lefty who won the Valero Texas Open and finished 26th at East Lake last week.
Despite winning the BMW Championship last month, I find it baffling that Keegan Bradley was chosen. He now won’t serve as a vice-captain, passing up a valuable opportunity to get a taste of leadership ahead of next September when he *checks notes* will be the US Ryder Cup captain to face Europe at Bethpage Black.
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Presidents Cup mixed event would be epic
To be fair to Weir, the Canadian who won the Masters in 2003, he shouldn’t be pelted with frustration as much as Furyk. Cam Davis should’ve been chosen after a solid season and despite Nick Taylor’s drop-off, this is last year’s Canadian Open champion we’re talking about, plus the WM Phoenix Open of this year. Quite the atmospheres and surroundings he’s found success in.
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This column won’t descend into a criticism of the Captain’s selections. You can’t please everyone. I no doubt churned out something similar before last year’s and probably next year’s Ryder Cup. But what these picks show to me, now more than ever, is that change is needed. I don’t understand each team’s motivation.
Do the USA use this event as practice for the Ryder Cup? If so, why leave out Thomas who is very likely to be in New York next year? Do the Internationals want the best players possible to win a trophy they’ve won once in the event’s existence? I assume the answer is yes, so why is Davis not playing when he is ranked higher in the world than five of Weir’s team?
I am looking forward to the Presidents Cup, largely as a huge fan of team match play events, and as a European fan, I’ll be rooting for the Internationals. But like last week’s Tour Championship, the clamour for change to this event’s format is real.
There have long been calls to change to a mixed event. Realistically with my most cynical hat on, will this happen? No. But there isn’t one reason why it shouldn’t. The landscape of golf has changed dramatically in the last three years after the introduction of LIV Golf, so why can this event not change?
In an ideal Presidents Cup, there would be six men’s players and six women’s players on each team. There would be no restrictions applied to players from the LIV Golf League which is currently hindering the likes of Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Cameron Smith from competing.
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Sure, re-placing my cynical hat on my head, this won’t happen. But it should and if you are a golf fan, how couldn’t you tune in to a four-day match play event (make it a three-day event while we’re here) with two teams made of the best American and International men’s and women’s players?
This would be an infinitely clear upgrade on a tournament which has lost its way.
So I’ve compiled two new Presidents Cup teams, without inhibitions. I’ve left out a few names just like Furyk and Weir have done, and based it mostly on the world rankings and who people want to see play golf, but this is what an ideal Presidents Cup match would look like to me:
| Team USA | The Internationals |
| Scottie Scheffler | Hideki Matsuyama |
| Nelly Korda | Lydia Ko |
| Xander Schauffele | Adam Scott |
| Lilia Vu | Jin Young Ko |
| Collin Morikawa | Sungjae Im |
| Rose Zhang | Ruoning Yin |
| Wyndham Clark | Tom Kim |
| Lauren Coughlin | Amy Yang |
| Brooks Koepka | Byeong Hun An |
| Ally Ewing | Hannah Green |
| Bryson DeChambeau | Cameron Smith |
| Megan Khang | Ayaka Furue |
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What do you make of the Presidents Cup mixed event idea? Could the Presidents Cup mixed event idea get off the ground? Tell us on X!
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