Team USA produced a remarkable comeback after trailing by three points heading into the singles matches. The four-day event at Medinah was entertaining throughout, and by Saturday night it finally seemed the International Team realised the cup was within reach. Their dominant performance (a 5-0 sweep) of the Thursday foursomes, and holding their nerve on Friday and Saturday had set them up for a remarkable win. On paper, the odds were stacked against the Internationals, only one player in the World top 10, but on the course they were much stronger and better than anyone had expected.
Team USA were rallied before the Sunday singles matches by President Trump. After the victory, American captain Brandt Snedeker gave the President the credit for the win. It was interesting to see President Trump’s power move handshake to Adam Scott where he pulled his hand back to himself and yanked Scott’s arm. A move to indicate dominance and meant to intimidate!
The Americans’ pulled off the greatest ever Sunday singles performance. Justin Thomas was particularly impressive pulling off his first Presidents Cup singles win. He never let up after going 4 up after 4 holes and never letting Corey Conners into the match. Thomas won 5 &3.
World number one Scottie Scheffler’s match against Nico Echavarria was dramatic. On the 14th hole, an American fan shouted during Echavarria’s backswing, sending his tee shot badly off line. Scheffler confronted the fan, saying, “There’s no place for that.” Then, after missing his own birdie putt to win the hole outright, he conceded Echavarria’s 30-foot putt — a generous act of sportsmanship in the circumstances. It was not the only incident: earlier in the week, someone shouted “Get in the water” during another International player’s tee shot. Scheffler won the match 2&1.
The fan behaviour was not as bad as at the Bethpage Black Ryder Cup, but there was still a rowdy atmosphere later in the week after a dull, quiet vibe on Thursday and Friday when the matches were sparsely attended.
International captain Geoff Ogilvy said “I’m impressed with this group of guys they were committed to this, the spirit is amazing, they’re all incredibly motivated to come back in 2028 and do it again.
Although the Presidents Cup has been run since 1994, the International team have only won once, in 1998, with a tied match in 2003. But this match at Medinah felt like the Ryder Cup match of 1983 at Palm Beach Gardens, when the Europeans lost in America by only one point. Seve came in to the European team room then and told everyone to get excited “We’ve proved today, we can win this” and they did, for three matches in a row after that. The Presidents Cup seems to be at that pivotal point now.
There are things that could be changed that would make things better and fairer. The PGA Tour runs the Presidents Cup and both teams. The International team need a degree of independence from this set up. Also, to exclude players who had been playing on the LIV Tour, particularly now it does not currently exist, was wrong. It meant that the highly successful Joaquin Neimann and former Open Champion Cameron Smith were excluded. They would have greatly strengthened the International team.
By the next match in 2028 at Kingston Heath GC in Melbourne, Australia, let’s hope some exciting new talent has emerged — including Casey Jarvis, Keita Nakajima, Wenyi Ding and Yanhan Zhou from China. Former Masters champion Adam Scott will be 48 then, but now is still playing excellent golf.
He could perhaps become a vice-captain with a view to captaining the team in the future. Geoff Ogilvy did a strong job this time: clever, creative and involved even in Medinah’s course redesign, which worked superbly. The only strategic decision I questioned was his choice not to front-load his best players in the singles matches.
In contrast, I doubt we’ll see Brandt Snedeker in any form of captaincy role for USA again. He was too affected by the stress of the matches, and even called himself on it on Friday, “I don’t think I’ve done my job very well”. This kind of self-flagellation was a bit cringey and immature, At the end of the match he gave all the glory to the President of the United States. This was him not taking responsibility too, even though the President clearly did have a positive effect on Team USA’s morale on Sunday.
The Internationals can most definitely win this and do it in 2 years’ time on the back of this positive performance this match. The tide is turning.
