The 13th edition of the biennial Presidents Cup Matches between the United States and an International squad that included the rest of the world except for Europe was a nail-biter to the very end last weekend. The American squad made a dramatic comeback during Sunday’s singles matches to end up winning by a razor thin 16-14 score.
In our lead up article to the Presidents Cup, our expert prognosticator, five-time PGA Tour winner and three-time Ryder Cup victor Johnny Pott, predicted that the matches would be close and that the Presidents up would be determined during the final matches Sunday. Pott’s call was spot on as Team USA had to win 8-4 in Sunday singles to barely prevail.
The Cup began with a cloud of controversy over the heads of the American team captained by Tiger Woods. At the previous week’s Hero World, Patrick Reed was in the middle of a rules controversy that asked one of two questions: Is this guy the most tainted golfer on the PGA Tour when it comes to reputation or is this guy the most oblivious linkster on tour when it comes to the game, its rules, and his own integrity? In the end, the controversy may have hung heavily over Tiger and his team, but it seemed to make zero impact upon Reed.
Team USA was the heavy favorite. The American team was loaded with golfers atop the world rankings such as Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele. The average world ranking of Team USA was a gaudy 12th place. The International team with seven rookies had an average world ranking of 41st, the second highest in the 25-year history of the Presidents Cup. Then again, there is a thin line between the 20th best golfer and the 60th.
First-day matches featured five better ball (fourball), and the Internationals showed themselves to be the real deal, jumping out to a 4-1 lead. The only victorious American team was the Tiger Woods-Justin Thomas pairing. The second day was alternate shot (foursomes), and for a while on the back nine Team USA was behind in all five matches. Then Cantlay made a winning birdie putt on 18, Thomas did the same some 30 minutes later, and Rickie Fowler made a delicate downhill par putt on the final hole to eek out a halve (tie). Instead of falling behind 9-1, the Americans stayed close at 6 ½ to 3 ½. There was still hope for Team USA.
Day three was the double-match day with four better ball matches in the morning followed by four alternate shot contests in the afternoon. The Americans lost ground on Saturday morning and trailed 9-5 going into the afternoon matches. However, Team USA flipped the switch at the last possible moment during the alternate shot matches. They recorded two wins and two ties to find themselves just two back at 10-8 going into the 12 singles matches on Sunday.
Sunday dawned and Team USA immediately tied the score at 10-10 with early wins by Tiger Woods and Dustin Johnson. Tony Finau was five down in his match with just eight holes to go and ended up tied for a half point. Patrick Reed won his match and suddenly the American team was in the lead. Yet as Pott predicted, it would come down to the final matches as six of the matches were tied during the course of the final nine. Sungjae Im and Cameron Smith won for the Internationals and the whole cup was in the hands of Americans Matt Kuchar and Rickie Fowler, who were playing against two International veterans, namely Louie Oosthuizen and an obviously exhausted Marc Leishman. Louie and Marc had to win their matches. Instead they tied and Tiger and his team won the Presidents Cup by the thinnest of margins.
While America won the Cup, the real winner was the Royal Melbourne Golf Club, a classic course designed by Alister Mackenzie (Augusta National, Pasatiempo and Cypress Point) some 90 years ago. It was a great test of golf and I now regret that I never took the flight Down Under when I was a younger man to experience great Australian golf.
From the captain’s perspective, Tiger owes a great debt of gratitude to assistant captains Freddie Couples, Steve Stricker and Zach Johnson for holding down the fort while he was playing. Yet true accolades have to go to Ernie Els, the International captain. Regardless of team reputation, Els got his guys to truly believe in themselves. He was like Seve Ballesteros in 1997 at the Ryder Cup at Valderama in that he seemed to be everywhere during five rounds of play. He and assistant captain Geoff Ogilvy both charted the course for his team and the Internationals had a better understanding of how to deal with the nuances of Royal Melbourne than did the Americans. As an aside, if you try to look up Royal Melbourne and its course record, you’ll see that it is held at 12-under-par 60 by one Ernie Els.
Bryson DeChambeau didn’t play much for Team USA in the Cup, but the real talk was his change in appearance. He appears to be about 25 pounds heavier and much more muscular. Only time will tell whether this helps him or whether he takes the same path as David Duval and Jason Day when it comes to beefing up with resulting bad back issues. He also introduced a new 4.8 degree driver. I do believe that golf’s mad scientist has gone completely mad.
I am a big fan of professional golf, so I know all about Abraham Ancer, C.T. Pan, Sungjae Im, Cameron Smith and Adam Hadwin.I contend that Hadwin has the best swing on tour. They are all 20-somethings who will only get better. They could be a formidable force in the coming years. These types of matches also are an early indication of the changing of the guard. We may not see a whole lot more of Adam Scott and Matt Kuchar, just as Phil Mickelson was not on the team scene for the first time in 25 years. In the end though, the best line of the Cup came from Australian Adam Scott. When asked about the surprising lead that the Internationals took on day one, he contended. “We don’t play golf on paper, we play on grass.”
Speaking of the end, this could be the finale for Patrick Reed in team competition. Since Jim Furyk broke up his Jordan Spieth pairing at last year’s Ryder Cup, Reed has been a combined 0-7 in two-man team play. On top of that, his caddie/brother-in-law brought a little Jerry Springer to the matches and was suspended from working for Reed on Sunday. That’s not exactly a class act, regardless of how rude spectators can sometimes be. And so the Presidents Cup is now in the record books. Thanks to Johnny Pott for his views on this year’s matches. He may not have been on the PGA Tour since the late 1970s, but he certainly still knows golf. Thanks Johnny!
