Charlotte, NC: The last President’s Cup was so close that the international team walked away with renewed hope that it had enough games and enough fighting to win the mighty Americans.
It seems a long time ago now.
Sure, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the Presidents Cup back a year.
British Open champion Cameron Smith said: “It’s something we’ve been waiting for for the past three years, and then 20 days later he was officially announced his exit from the rival league.
Chile’s Joaquin Niemann and Australia’s Mark Leishman also took the cash to sign with LIV Golf two days before filling out the 12-man international squad. Louis Osthuizen, so good in the Presidents Cup that he had a winning record, while never playing on a winning team, was among the first to go back in June.
American captain Davis Love III was asked if he felt bad for Trevor Immelman, who had been elected international captain long before the LIV, was nothing more than a Roman numeral.
“I feel bad for the game of golf right now that this story is going on,” Love said. “I feel really bad for all of us. But Trevor has one job to do, and that’s getting 12 guys out there to play, and he’s going to focus on that.”
The 14th edition of matches between the Americans and an international team made up of players from outside Europe begins at Quail Hollow Club on Thursday, and it looks to be one-sided as records show.
The Americans have lost only once, in 1998 at Royal Melbourne, Australia, in a match that ended 12 days before Christmas. There was a tie in South Africa and then eight consecutive US celebrations.
America, with a young and hungry team, is not even a year away from inflicting their worst defeat to Europe, 19-9 in the Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits.
The Americans were not immune to defections – Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau were on that Ryder Cup team – although there was no certainty that they would have made it.
And the state of American golf is such that replacements are easy to find. All 12 players are in the top 25 in the world rankings.
The international team counters with only three players out of the top 25 – former Masters champions Hideki Matsuyama, Sungjae Im and Tom Kim, a 20-year-old South Korean who was not even considering winning the Wyndham Championship six weeks ago.
Immelman brings eight Presidents Cup rookies to Quail Hollow. Only three players from his team have won the tournament this year. Only two – Matsuyama and Adam Scott – have won big.
There are only three players in Love’s team who have not won this year. It features two-time major champions Colin Morikawa and Cameron Young, a PGA Tour rookie who has been runner-up five times and twice came within a shot of a chance to win a major.
Now think of Melbourne in 2019, a Presidents Cup that followed the path of an international team to rally the US on the final day and a 16-14 victory. Ernie Els was the captain who gave his side a new logo, a new identity and a fighting spirit.
Els said when his team finished, “If you look at their record and where are these guys at the moment, they’re going places, I can tell you.”
The Americans have five Presidents Cup rookies, although two of them (Morikawa and Scotty Scheffler) have played in the Ryder Cup, and two others (Sam Burns and Max Homa) have three PGA Tour victories in the past 12 months.
It is one-sided on paper. This is one sided history. If the Americans are under pressure, it’s about not having the team that eventually loses.
Immelmann does not hide his disappointment in the absence of Osthuizen and Smith and Niemann who were seen as major contributors.