The eyes of Liezl Els told the result of the 2019 Presidents Cup. Ernie’s wife wiped away fresh tears and tried to hide her disappointment behind a pair of oversized sunglasses. Only she really knew the countless hours that her husband invested as Captain of Team International. The pain of a 16-14 defeat at Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia, will linger because victory was there for the taking.
What transpired nearly three years ago in December was one of the most spirited competitions to date in the Presidents Cup, a team match-play competition between the United States and the world’s best non-European players. Credit to Els for devising a way to neutralize the so-called American advantage. He threw himself head-long into his captaincy, and he turned over every stone in search of the slightest edge. He became convinced that the pairings mattered, and he developed a strategy using advanced analytics. Els’s squad took advantage and jumped to a 6 ½-3 ½ lead.
“If you compare our team on paper with other teams in other sport, you would have laughed us out of the building,” Els said. “But we gave it a hell of a go and we came mightily close to winning and upsetting one of the greatest golf teams of all time…It didn’t quite work out, but we came damn close.”
The Presidents Cup has delivered such passion from its participants since it debuted in 1994 at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Prince William County, Virginia. (It was held there again in 1996.) The Americans, captained by Hale Irwin and Arnold Palmer in 1994 and 1996, respectively, won on both occasions against teams led by David Graham and Peter Thomson.
Royal Melbourne hosted the first Presidents Cup outside the United States in 1998, and Thomson’s International Team defeated a U.S. squad led by Jack Nicklaus. But the U.S. were prepared and got their vengeance in 2000 as Ken Venturi’s American side routed Thomson’s team by a record margin, 21 ½-10 ½.
The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, delayed the 2002 Cup until 2003. Held in South Africa, the match was an instant classic. Davis Love III, the U.S. Captain this go-round, participated in the first six Presidents Cups as a player and was an assistant captain to Fred Couples in 2013, Jay Haas in 2015 and Steve Stricker in 2017, and he thinks about his role in the outcome of the 2003 Cup all the time. He still regrets that he didn’t deliver in the clutch in South Africa, site of the infamous tie.
“I screwed the whole thing up,” Love said. “I had played a really good match from tee to green and had lipped out a bunch of putts and got to the last hole leading Robert Allenby 1 up, so I only needed to tie (that hole) and we’d have won the Cup.”
The finishing hole at the Links Course at Fancourt Hotel and Country Club is a par 5 and Love split the fairway with his drive. When he arrived at his ball, U.S. Captain Jack Nicklaus was waiting there and advised him that many players had overshot the green.
“Of course, I panicked and hit a big flare to the right and short, chili-dipped it and gave Allenby the hole,” Love recalled.
That meant a playoff for the first time in the history of the competition, with Tiger Woods selected to represent the American side against Ernie Els in his native land. The stalemate could not be broken after three playoff holes. As darkness descended, Captains Nicklaus and Gary Player agreed to share the Cup.
“Tiger claims that I put him in a terrible situation having to play Ernie in South Africa. I said, ‘I set you up to be a hero.’ I sat up on the hill with my head in my hands watching those guys play in the dark going there’s no reason we should be playing now,” Love remembers. “Nicklaus will not let it go. He’ll say, ‘If you had just hit the 4-iron on the green we would’ve won.’ I set him up for another great moment of sportsmanship in his legacy.”
Nicklaus oversaw his U.S. team edge Player’s International squad in the next two editions, played in 2005 again at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Virginia and in 2007 at Royal Montreal Golf Club in Canada.
Fred Couples took over the captaincy for the U.S. side in 2009, and the Americans made it three in a row at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco. In 2011, Royal Melbourne again hosted but the Internationals couldn’t stop the U.S. winning streak. Neither could Nick Price in the captain’s role push the Internationals into the victory column in 2013 at Nicklaus’ Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio, as Couples captains successfully for a third time. Woods won the deciding point for the U.S. in all three wins under Couples.
In 2015, the Presidents Cup made its first foray into Asia at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea in Incheon City, South Korea. Captain Jay Haas watched his son, Bill, win the deciding point in the last Singles match as the U.S. edged Price and the Internationals for the sixth straight victory. The U.S. side dominated in 2017 back on home soil at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, New Jersey, claiming the first four team sessions and needing just one point to clinch heading into Sunday’s singles.
The Presidents Cup returned to Royal Melbourne for a third time in 2019 and delivered one of the most closely contested matches in the biennial event’s history.
The close-but-no-cigar result meant the team’s record in the biennial event is 1-11-1 and it hasn’t won in a quarter century – a losing streak that dates to 1998. It’s a dubious distinction and one that The International side intends to rectify under the leadership of another South African.
Trevor Immelman, the 2008 Masters champion and lead analyst for CBS Sports’ golf coverage beginning next year, takes over the reins from Els this time and will lead his 12-man team into battle at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte. In two Presidents Cup appearance in 2005 and 2007, he compiled a 1-6-1 record. Immelman is confident his side has turned a corner. He hopes to build on the blueprint for victory that Els implemented in 2019.
Immelman noted that he has “literally and physically massive shoes to fill,” but “Ernie for the first time gave our team an identity and something to try to build off. You know, we almost got there.”
Perhaps the biggest hurdle for the International team always has been creating a team atmosphere with players from so many different countries, different cultures and speaking different languages.
“We represent a large portion of the world,” Immelman said. “Last time in Australia we had eight different regions represented. So we have to try and bridge those gaps from a communication and culture standpoint, so those are the things that we work really hard on.”
“Sometimes you met the guy for the first time on Tuesday afternoon of the competition,” International Team assistant captain Geoff Ogilvy said. “I didn’t know K.T. Kim (in 2011). By Saturday we’re great friends but it took until Saturday.”
Has Els set the wheels in motion to end the U.S. domination by nearly pulling off an improbable upset? Will another loss diminish the team’s competitive spirit or ignite an intense rivalry?
No one has endured losing at the Presidents Cup quite like Adam Scott. The Australian has represented the International Team nine times – this year marks his 10th – in the biennial competition since 2003, but he has yet to taste victory. As Ogilvy put it, “Adam is burning to win one of these.”
His resolve has not been broken.
“I’ve taken plenty of licks in this thing,” Scott said. “But I’ve always taken something so positive from this event. So many positive things have happened, so I don’t see this event as a real negative for me. I like what’s happening in the future and I can’t wait for another crack at it.”
Immelman is quite familiar with the Queen City from competing
in the Wells Fargo Championship, where he once finished second, losing a sudden-death playoff in 2006 to Jim Furyk, and from visiting his parents, who formerly resided there.
At 42, he will be the youngest man to captain either side and he and his men will face a tough test. Immelman served as an assistant captain in 2019 and as a TV broadcaster for CBS Sports and Golf Channel witnessed first-hand the USA’s youthful brigade and how it dismantled Europe in the 2021 Ryder Cup.
Add in the fact that the Internationals are playing on foreign soil and has never won an away match and it could be an uphill battle. But at least most of Immelman’s crew will have experience at the layout from playing in the Wells Fargo Championship or during the 2017 PGA Championship.
“I struggle to think of a better place to hold a team event like this,” Immelman said of Quail Hollow. “The Green Mile is going to be an incredible place to watch the pressure points of the match. There’s just nowhere to hide on those holes.
“The golf course has always been one of my favorites on the PGA Tour, and I believe from a match play standpoint, it’s going to be extremely exciting,” Love said. “The way the routing is planned out, I see like a seven- or eight-hole stretch where we’re going to have drivable par-4s, we’re going to have par-5s, we’ve got all these holes with water in play. It’s going to be fantastic to get the crowd really revved up supporting their home team, and I just can’t wait.”
Love has taken the responsibility seriously almost from the minute the U.S side clinched the Ryder Cup last September.
“We just got done with it on Sunday, and the guys said, ‘Are you going home? What are you doing?’ and I go, ‘No, I’m going to Presidents Cup. Midnight it starts Presidents Cup year.’ ”
Love has been looking ahead to the Presidents Cup ever since, but he won’t fall prey to assuming his team will march to an easy victory.
“They could bring 12 Korn Ferry guys and they could be really good. I’m not going to get into it being easy,” Love said. “You’ve got to win every session. That’s going to be the challenge. I feel bad for Trevor that some of his big-name guys have left him. Plus, we have home-field advantage with a really good team so expectations are high.”
Both Captains have participated in enough editions of the Presidents Cup to share the belief of Nicklaus, a four-time U.S. captain of the event, who said, “The Presidents Cup is as much about sportsmanship, goodwill and charity as it is about competition.”
No matter the result, these 24 players no they have been part of something special, something they will always remember, and have had a chance to represent their country in international competition.
“You wait so long, and it feels like time stands still, and then the tournament starts, and it’s just over in the blink of an eye,” Immelman said, “and at the end of the week you’re just walking around giving people hugs saying, ‘I’ve got to get on this team next time.’”