When the Presidents Cup goes to Australia in a week, Adam Scott hopes the home crowd doesn’t get too carried away by Tiger mania.
Tiger Woods’ fame transcends continents. He’s not an American sports hero, he’s a worldwide one. But when the Presidents Cup goes to Australia in a week, with Woods competing as the first playing captain in the event since 1994, Australian Adam Scott hopes the home crowd doesn’t get too carried away.
As in, remember who to cheer for, mates.
Scott, the world No. 15 who is about to make his ninth Presidents Cup appearance, told the Melbourne-based Herald Sun this week that he hopes fans get loud for the Internationals. After all, noise and support are major factors in a home-course advantage.
“Last time it was too friendly,” Scott told the Herald Sun. “Quite bluntly, we want the home-crowd advantage, and I’ll be disappointed if they are cheering enthusiastically for Tiger or anyone on the U.S. team.”
The matches are returning to Royal Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia for the first time since 2011. The U.S. team won the Cup that year, which was also the last time Woods played in Australia.
The Presidents Cup scoreboard has grown more and more lopsided since, with the U.S. winning all three subsequent meetings. It’s worth noting, however, that the only International victory in the event’s history was at Royal Melbourne in 1998.
Scott’s Presidents Cup record stands at 14-20-5 for a run that dates to 2003.
With Jason Day now out of the International huddle because of a lingering back injury – and Presidents Cup rookie Byeong Hun An taking his spot – Scott is the most experienced player on the team. Counting An, more than half of the International team members are Presidents Cup rookies.
It makes the right type of crowd energy that much more important.
“I’m not saying be a poor sport, but one challenge our team has always had is gaining a home-soil advantage because it’s rare that stars like Tiger and DJ (Dustin Johnson) come to Australia (2011) or Korea (2015) where we play these things and the locals are excited to see them as much as anyone on our team,” Scott said. “But while we appreciate them very much, we don’t have to cheer for them.”
The Presidents Cup will be played Dec. 13-15 at Royal Melbourne. For U.S. viewers, the first match will air the evening of Dec. 12 because of the time difference.
Jason Day has withdrawn from the Presidents Cup International Team and captain Ernie Els has chosen Byeong Hun An as replacement.
Presidents Cup captain Ernie Els has chosen Byeong Hun An to replace an injured Jason Day on the International Team, the Presidents Cup announced Friday.
Day, who has a 5-11-4 Presidents Cup record, withdrew from the Dec. 9-15 event at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club due to a back injury. The event would have been the Australian’s fifth Presidents Cup appearance.
In a statement released Friday, Day said he hopes to return to Australia to play soon, but in the meantime, wishes all Presidents Cup competitors luck.
Day also withdrew from the Australian Open, Dec. 5-8.
“I’m quite disappointed I won’t be coming home to play in either the Australian Open in Sydney or the Presidents Cup the following week in Melbourne,” Day said. “I was quite looking forward to both events. I had been prepping all week in Palm Springs when I was injured.
“Frustratingly, I’ve been through back problems before and my medical team decided it best to shut down all practice and play. Therefore, I wanted to inform Golf Australia as well as provide Ernie as much time as possible to best prepare our International Team for Royal Melbourne.”
“We wish Jason well and hope his back recovers quickly. We were eager to have Jason as part of the team at Royal Melbourne and his experience will be missed,” Els said in a statement. “The good news is that there were a number of strong and qualified players available to choose from when I made my captain’s selections. To have someone as steady and talented as Ben An puts us in a great position to succeed. Ben played extremely well this fall and throughout the year and he will fit in nicely on this team.”
The 28-year-old An competed in 22 PGA Tour events last season and had three top 10 finishes with his best coming from a third-place finish at Wyndham Championship. An also earned $1,990,033 in 2019.
With the addition of An, who will compete in his first Presidents Cup, the International Team will feature two Korean players. An joins Sungjae Im, the 2019 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year.
“I’m sorry to hear that Jason has been forced to withdraw from the International Team and I wish him a speedy recovery. It was a huge surprise to receive a call from Ernie who told me that I was in the team,” An said in a statement. “It has been a goal of mine all season to be on the International Team and I am honored to play in my first Presidents Cup. I’m looking forward to joining Ernie and the rest of the team in Melbourne and, more importantly, contribute to the International Team’s goal to win the Cup.”
The International Team move follows Brooks Koepka’s withdrawal from the U.S. Team due to a lagging left knee injury. Team captain Tiger Woods selected Rickie Fowler as a replacement on Nov. 20.
Tiger Woods’s selection of Patrick Reed was the right call and could be the start of the Captain America redemption tour Down Under.
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Of Tiger Woods’s four captain picks for the Presidents Cup, he made three no brainers and chose Patrick Reed.
Woods could have justified the selection of the hot hand, Kevin Na, who has won twice in his past 10 starts, including at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in October. He could’ve picked Rickie Fowler and few would have batted an eye. He could have ignored the standings and current form and gone for veteran leadership and taken Phil Mickelson or went with his gut and Jordan Spieth. (After his 2015 season, could anyone imagine a scenario where a healthy Spieth wouldn’t be on an American team for at least the next decade?)
But Woods made the right call in taking the 29-year-old Reed to round out his team going to Australia this December, despite the fact that, as the saying goes, his baggage doesn’t fit in the overhead compartment.
“Definitely was fired up to get the phone call from Tiger saying that I was a pick and that he can’t wait for me to be a part of the team and that I’d bring a lot to the team,” Reed said in a conference call with media on Tuesday night. “That means a lot, especially coming from one of the greatest golfers ever to live on this planet. For him to trust in me and the team to trust in me means a lot because it means that I’ve worked hard and that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing, and that’s try to go out and play the best golf I can.”
Woods could have served as judge and jury and sentenced Reed to a one-year banishment from Team USA for “conduct unbecoming,” to borrow the PGA Tour’s all-encompassing pet phrase. What’s said in the locker room, stays in the locker room. Reed violated this basic rule when he threw Jim Furyk, the 2018 U.S. Ryder Cup captain, under the bus and aired the team’s dirty laundry publicly following the team’s defeat at Le Golf National in France. Forget the staged bro-hug when Reed and Spieth were paired together for the first time this season at the Farmers Insurance Open – the Presidents Cup selection was the ultimate determinant of how severe the consequences of Reed’s actions would be (apparently, at worst, he was given double-secret probation).
No one has a longer memory than Woods – see Stephen Ames, 9 and 8 – but his selection of Reed proves that he’s willing to let bygones be bygones for the good of the future of Team USA.
“That was all put to bed,” Reed said. “We all talked about it. We’ve all moved on, and we’re all just really getting excited for this year and to focus on going out and doing what we’re supposed to do.”
Patrick Reed established his reputation as “Captain America” with his take down of Rory McIlroy at the 2016 Ryder Cup at Hazeltine National. Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports
If the U.S. is going to regain the Ryder Cup in 2020, it is going to need the fiery Reed, who Tiger said “bleeds red, white and blue.” Where better for Reed to reestablish his aura as a big-game killer (see, Rory McIlroy, Hazeltine, 2016) than at the Ryder Cup Lite? While Sergio Garcia and Matt Kuchar go around kissing babies in Instagram posts and hosting junior clinics to restore their public image, Reed seems if not to revel in his bad-boy image to at least accept “it is what it is” and the 2019 Presidents Cup has a chance to be his personal Captain America redemption tour Down Under.
“For some reason I love to go in and basically feel like my back is up against the wall and go out and try to prove something every week I play,” he said. “It’s just been something that’s always been a part of me.”
Woods has always been a bit of a lone wolf, too, and he’s said before that he sees some of himself in Reed, the 2018 Masters champion who draped the green jacket on his back this April. While trying to describe what will make Woods a good captain at the Presidents Cup, Reed pointed out that Tiger has taken the time to understand the personalities of each player “and knowing what makes them tick.”
Woods knows that Reed is going to be a fixture on the U.S. side for many years to come and he needs to be brought back into the inner circle, for better or worse. Reed is a match-play maven. He is the U.S. version of Ian Poulter. Or maybe an even better comparison is to say he is the U.S. team’s Colonel Nathan Jessup in “A Few Good Men:”
“My existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, wins matches. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall.”
Yes, we do, and so does Tiger. Do we not want a guy on the team that when asked who he’d like to play in the Sunday singles answers, “Whoever is playing best on their team. I’ve always just loved to go up against the best guy, so whoever is playing the best I’d love to take him on on Sunday.”
Captain America is out to remove the tarnish of going 1-3 in the last Ryder Cup (though he’s a little too quick to point out that he’s still undefeated in singles. Note to Patrick: the team lost; that’s all that matters.) Does Reed feel any extra pressure to live up to his reputation?
“I don’t. You know, everyone has bad years no matter what,” Reed said.
His back is firmly against the wall just the way Reed likes it. America won’t stand for another bad year. Let the redemption tour begin.
