There’s an awful lot of talk about growing the game. Slogans are created and commercials are made. But here’s a no-brainer.
There’s an awful lot of talk about growing the game. Slogans are created and commercials are made. And yet, for all those good wishes, there seems to be a rather obvious way to move the needle in a way that would benefit the game as a whole – add women to the Presidents Cup.
Not just for the good of the game. Do it for the good of the event, which has never been more lopsided. The International team has won only one time since the inaugural event in 1994. There have been a number of blowouts, and all signs point to a massive one taking place this week at Quail Hollow Club, especially after several strong players went to the LIV Golf Series.
Kevin Kisner is the lowest-ranked player on Team USA at No. 25, which is better than all but three players on the International squad.
What would happen if the PGA Tour opened this up to the LPGA?
Six of the top eight players in the Rolex Rankings would be on an International team of 12 that featured six men and six women. Additionally, as it currently stands, the six women on the International team would have 10 majors between them.
Here’s what this week could look like if some forward-thinking officials wanted to give fans a real treat (listed in order by world ranking):
Davis Love III, captain of the 2022 Presidents Cup, has an experienced group of assistants but also a newcomer.
An eight-time Presidents Cup participant. A former Ryder Cup captain. A future Ryder Cup captain. And a first-timer assistant.
Davis Love III, the captain of the 2022 Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow Club in his home state of North Carolina, has an experienced group of assistants but also a newcomer getting his first taste of international competition as an assistant.
The biennial competition is Sept. 22-25 and pits a 12-man U.S. squad against a 12-man international team (minus the European nations). The Americans lead the all-time series 11-1-1 and has never lost when the matches are staged in the U.S.
Here’s a look at the four U.S. assistant captains:
“This next generation of Will Zalatoris and Cameron Young, they need to meet Fred Couples.”
The Man Out Front is still trying to wrap his head around Sweden’s Henrik Stenson joining LIV Golf then showing surprise that it cost the former British Open champ arguably the greatest honor of his career, the captaincy of the 2023 European Ryder Cup team.
LIV Golf defections likely mean Sergio Garcia, Ian Poulter and Graeme McDowell are out of Team Euro’s pipeline of future Ryder Cup captains, too. What about Team USA? Most notably, Phil Mickelson and down the road Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson likely took their names out of consideration.
Meanwhile, Team USA brings stability to the 2022 Presidents Cup with Davis Love III, a two-time Ryder Cup captain, getting another turn at the helm.
“We’ve talked about it for three to four years, maybe more, about me doing Presidents Cup in Charlotte,” Love, a Tar Heel State native and North Carolina grad, told TMOF of this year’s event at Quail Hollow Club, September 22-25. “I told both Tim Finchem and Jay Monahan no. I said, ‘I need to be done with this. We need some new guys.’
“Tiger called me and told me they had decided I should be the captain. I called Jay and he said, ‘Look, you’re a lifer on the PGA Tour. You’ve put so much into the Presidents Cup. You’re going to be captain and Charlotte is the place to do it.’ When Tiger and Jay and the rest of our group all point at you, I’m honored to do it.”
The members of the group formerly known as The Task Force had a succession plan in place. Then Woods, the victorious captain for Team USA at the 2019 Presidents Cup, was involved in a car accident and LIV Golf shook up the order. It meant Zach Johnson was bumped up to the Ryder Cup gig in Italy in 2023.
“The order is a little messed up,” Love conceded.
If Mickelson is out of the rotation, does that mean there still could be a chance for Fred Couples to land the Ryder Cup job in 2025 or beyond?
“I sure hope so,” Love said. “This next generation of Will Zalatoris and Cameron Young, they need to meet Fred Couples. Arnie (Palmer) and Ken Venturi did it at an older age well after their playing career was over. Another generation got to know them. So, I think it would be good. He wasn’t really skipped over. He just jumped to Presidents Cup and did three in a row. The order is off, and who knows just how far off it is. Does Tiger want Bethpage (in ’25) or does he want to wait? I don’t think it’s over for Fred, because we’re kind of in a weird zone.”
Was Trevor Immelman the right man for this job? Time will tell.
Melville Fuller, a former chief justice of the United States, once said, “Without continuity men would become like flies in summer.”
As far as we know, Fuller wasn’t speaking about the International Team for the Presidents Cup, but he might as well have been. South African Trevor Immelman was named the Presidents Cup captain for the International squad at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte.
This was a vote for team continuity as Ernie Els passed the baton to Immelman, the 2008 Masters champion, who served as understudy at the 2019 Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne. What Els did to breathe new life into the matches can’t be underscored enough. He created “a family dynamic” and gave the team “an identity,” Immelman said.
“We felt that over the years that might have been something that was missing,” he said. “It’s a pretty big hurdle to try and overcome when you have players coming from seven, eight, nine different countries, different cultures, different languages. It’s a big hurdle for us to have to overcome that particular week.”
True continuity, one could argue, might have been Els coming back for a second tour of duty. Instead, he threw his efforts behind a bigger and more personal cause: Els for Autism, a disease his son, Ben, suffers from. But Els did create a blueprint for Immelman and future captains – whether it be Canadian Mike Weir, Korea’s K.J. Choi, or Australians Geoff Ogilvy and Adam Scott.
Trevor Immelman
Born: Cape Town, South Africa
Turned pro: 1999
Professional wins: 11
PGA Tour wins: 2
Major victories: 1 (2008 Masters)
Highest ranking: 12 (Sept. 2006)
“What he has created for our team, I think, is going to be so massive, not just in Charlotte but I’m talking about three, four, five, six Presidents Cups down the road,” Immelman said. “I think what Ernie did for our team, giving us something to build off of, we sure are hoping that that is going to be some kind of turning point for our team to where we can find a way to finally win this Cup again.”
While no one on the International Team, especially Els, was celebrating a moral victory in holding the lead entering Sunday’s singles before the U.S. rallied for a 16-14 victory at Royal Melbourne, Els and Co. believe they have put an end to a lopsided competition (the U.S. leads 11-1-1 in 13 matches). Someday, Els may be remembered as the International team’s version of Tony Jacklin, who accepted the European Ryder Cup captain’s role in 1983 and two years later became the inspirational leader of its first triumph in 28 years. That win ignited an intense rivalry.
And Els insisted he’s long had admiration for Immelman, who will replace Nick Faldo as lead golf analyst for CBS Sports beginning in 2023.
“My relationship with Trevor goes way back and I have always had the utmost respect for him as a player and a person,” Els said. “Trevor was an invaluable member of our team and completely bought into what we were trying to do at Royal Melbourne, so it is gratifying to see him take this next step and lead the International Team.”
Els met Immelman when he was 6 or 7 and handed Immelman a golf trophy at age 12. They are the best of friends, and Immelman, who was a teammate of Els on the International side in defeat in 2005 and 2007, considered it an honor to jump back into the fold as one of Els’s lieutenants.
“When he picked me as an assistant captain, I had no designs at all or even thoughts of possibly being a captain one day. I was just so focused on trying to help him,” Immelman said. “It just sort of organically came about.”
Immelman, 42, had his playing career curtailed by injuries. He joined CBS Sports’ golf team in 2019, and signed a new multi-year deal that begins with the network’s 2023 season, when he assumes his duties alongside Jim Nantz in the 18th tower for the Farmers Insurance Open. Immelman has been perceived as a rising star in the CBS ranks. That knowledge, as well as prior experience working with Els and as captain of the Junior Presidents Cup International team in 2017, will serve him well.
The fact remains that the U.S. side likely will be loaded again, and competing at a course they play every year during the Wells Fargo Championship (and in 2017, the PGA Championship). This will be the true test for the International side’s much-ballyhooed blueprint, just as playing away in France in 2018 exposed holes in Team USA’s master plan for regaining supremacy in the Ryder Cup.
Was Immelman the right man for this job? Time will tell, but at least it’s good to know that his father thinks so.
“He’s been a leader ever since he was a young kid,” said Johan Immelman. “He always rose to the occasion.”
That’s a trait shared with Els. Sounds like the International Team has found some continuity.
Quail Hollow Club is an ideal setting for the Tar Heel that is Love.
Davis Love III got the call again.
The member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, who counts 21 PGA Tour titles on his resume, including the 1997 PGA Championship, is leading the USA charges into the 2022 Presidents Cup.
It will be the third captaincy for Love; he was at the helm for the USA in the 2012 and 2016 editions of the Ryder Cup. Love also has been a vice captain in the Presidents Cup in 2013, 2015 and 2017 and in the Ryder Cup in 2010, 2018 and 2021.
Love’s playing card in the two events has been equally full – he played in the Presidents Cup in 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2005 and in the Ryder Cup in 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2002 and 2004.
“My history with this event dating back to 1994 conjures up indelible memories of competition, camaraderie and sportsmanship, and I’m thrilled to be leading the top American players into Quail Hollow Club,” said Love, 58, who was born in the Queen City. “The U.S. team has been guided by some of the game’s all-time greats since 1994, and I will do my best to carry on that legacy as we look to retain the Cup.”
In Love’s first go as captain in the 2012 Ryder Cup, the Europeans stormed back from a 10-4 deficit to win 14½-13½ at Medinah north of Chicago. Four years later, Love and the U.S. avenged the crushing defeat at Hazeltine in Minnesota, winning 17-11.
Davis Love III
Born: Charlotte, North Carolina
Turned pro: 1985
Professional wins: 37
PGA Tour wins: 21
Major victories: 1 (1997 PGA Championship)
Highest ranking: 2 (July 1998)
As for the Presidents Cup, the U.S. has dominated the Internationals, losing just once and tying once in 13 contests. The U.S. is in possession of the Cup after playing captain Tiger Woods led the Americans to a 16-14 victory in 2019 at Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Australia.
The 2022 Presidents Cup being contested at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, is an ideal setting for the Tar Heel that is Love.
“He’s got player respect through and through, experience in that venue and a guy that from a leadership standpoint is more willing to listen than speak, if that makes sense. He’s a good listener. He’s the epitome of a self-less leader,” two-time major champion Zach Johnson said. Johnson, who has played in the Ryder Cup five times and the Presidents Cup four times, was an assistant to Woods in the 2019 Presidents Cup and joined Love as an assistant for the most recent Ryder Cup.
Johnson said the decision to name Love involved many parties, including PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, the Ryder Cup committee and Tiger Woods.
“The process of getting to this point was actually quite extensive,” Johnson said. “There was a lot of discussion. For the betterment of the lineup of the Cups, for the betterment of the team, this was the best option. There were a lot of individuals involved in the process; it just got down to the point where we all felt that given where we are, Davis was the best option and to maintain what we’ve already established and get some new blood in as vice captains so we can be more selective and have more options in the future.
“Throw in the ties to North Carolina and that neck of the woods. He’s a Tar Heel at heart. Things just kind of lined up.”
South African and 2008 Masters champion Trevor Immelmann, who was named captain of the 2022 Internationals squad in April 2020, played in two editions of the Presidents Cup and was an assistant to Ernie Els in the 2019 Presidents Cup.
And the CBS analyst said he’s got the utmost respect for his counterpart.
“He’s so accomplished in the game,” Immelman said. “On the course his results speak for themselves and the longevity he’s had at the highest level is really fantastic. He’s one of the nicest guys you would ever wish to meet. Just a tremendous man. The charitable work he’s involved in with his family is tremendous. I have nothing but respect and admiration for Davis.
“He’s been captain of a couple of Ryder Cups, both emotional ones with obviously the first one with a bit of a mishap Sunday at Medinah, but then made amends for it the second time. Now he gets a shot at the Presidents Cup.
“Davis is popular wherever he goes, but to be in that role in Charlotte, a lot of people will be out there rooting for him. And the better the atmosphere, the better the event. I’m extremely happy for him to get this opportunity.”
Love was a three-time All-America at the University of North Carolina.
“The Carolinas mean so much to me and my family, and it’s humbling to know that I will return to Charlotte in this new role to help carry on the rich sports tradition the Queen City has developed through the years,” Love said. “Quail Hollow is one of the best tests of golf we see all year on the PGA Tour, and it will be a perfect venue for a match-play event given the variation of challenges it presents.
“I think you will see players taking on a number of risk-reward shots throughout the week, presenting an exciting environment for fans onsite and watching around the world.”
The International team hasn’t won in a quarter century.
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.”
International Team Captain Ernie Els gives a thumbs up during the second day of the 2019 Presidents Cup at The Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Victoria , Australia. (Photo: Keyur Khamar/PGA Tour via Getty Images)
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.
South African president Thabo Mbeki presents the Presidents Cup to the two sharing captains: Jack Nicklaus of the United States and the International Team’s Gary Player in South Africa. (Photo: Getty Images)
“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, assistant captain of the International team for the 2019 Presidents Cup, looks on during the team photo session at Royal Melbourne Golf Course Australia. (Photo: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)
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?
Adam Scott of Australia celebrates on the 17th green after he and Byeong-Hun An of South Korea and the International team defeated Bryson DeChambeau and Tony Finau of the United States team 2&1 during Thursday four-ball matches at the 2019 Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne Golf Course in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo: Warren Little/Getty Images)
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.
No. 16 at Quail Hollow Club, which will play as No. 13 in the Presidents Cup (Photo: Ben Jared/PGA Tour)
“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.’”
After many years of comparative apathy, the U.S. really does have something to prove at a Presidents Cup.
Captaining the International team at the Presidents Cup has long been akin to leading a re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo while cast in the role of Napoleon, doomed to a high-profile defeat. The faces of his troops may change, but for the skipper there is a dispiriting predictability about the result.
The Presidents Cup has been contested 13 times since it was created in 1994. The tally shows 11 U.S. wins, one tie, and one International victory. It came at Royal Melbourne in 1998, a time so distant that of the 24 competitors that week only Tiger Woods isn’t yet qualified for the senior circuit. It’s a dreary trend that the 2022 International captain, Trevor Immelman, is eager to upend at Charlotte’s Quail Hollow Club this month, but his task has been made no easier by a man who led the International squad to defeat twice as captain and now threatens to do so for a third time as a toxic disrupter: Greg Norman.
Norman’s LIV Golf has churned the normally placid waters of professional golf this year and is having a huge impact on a biennial team competition that often struggles to get fans talking. The problem is that much of the talk this year is about who won’t be there.
Among those players who defected to LIV — thereby rendering themselves ineligible for Presidents Cup selection — are a handful that Immelman must have assumed would make his squad when he took the job, like Cameron Smith, Louis Oosthuizen, Joaquin Niemann, Abraham Ancer and Branden Grace.
On the bright side, every player he has lost only had memories of losing the Presidents Cup. If nothing else, Immelman’s team room will house less scar tissue.
The impact is also apparent on the U.S. side, but less damaging with America’s deeper bench. Sure, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, and Bryson DeChambeau are gone — and Will Zalatoris is out with an injury — but Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth and Tony Finau remain. The defections have not altered the reality that Davis Love III’s team are the overwhelming favorites. That’s been the case since 1994, but in the 14th Presidents Cup the Americans might finally have a real incentive to prove that fact.
The anti-trust lawsuit filed in August by LIV golfers — and bankrolled by the Saudi government — is part of Norman’s effort to dismantle golf’s existing world order and establish LIV not only as the game’s premier platform but as home to the world’s best players. He’s a long way shy of achieving either goal, but his campaign has resulted in a palpable resentment among Tour loyalists and a steely determination to defend their circuit from the LIV threat. Even Love, a famously mild-mannered individual, has been strident in his public criticism of LIV, Norman and his acolytes.
One of the uncompromising messages delivered by players to Tour commissioner Jay Monahan after a meeting in Wilmington, Delaware, in August was that they don’t want to cross paths with LIV players on the tee again. There will be no LIV guys in the team rooms at Quail Hollow but the shadow cast by the Saudi series will be so obvious that the ceremonies might as well include a toast to absent friends. The schism is real, and apparently permanent.
Even for the most patriotic of players, it’s not always easy to get motivated for the Presidents Cup, and for some it’s only ever been a necessary inconvenience. This edition will be unlike those that preceded it. It’s an opportunity for the U.S. team to prove that it is united behind its Tour. The team members will be intent on sending a message, not so much to the International team as to an unseen enemy.
After almost 30 years of comparative apathy, the U.S. squad really does have something to prove at a Presidents Cup.
When Cam Smith and Joaquin Niemann made the jump to LIV, Immelman suddenly had an extra pair of selections.
Trevor Immelman’s job as the Presidents Cup captain for the International Team has become more difficult as the competition approaches.
The top eight players on the points list had earned a spot on the team for the biennial event against the United States to be held Sept. 22-25 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, meaning Immelman had four picks to make.
But when a pair of players — Cam Smith and Joaquin Niemann — made the jump to LIV Golf before the recent event outside Boston, Immelman suddenly had an extra pair of selections to play with. This followed the costly defections of Louis Oosthuizen and Abraham Ancer, about whom Immelman had previously said, “We’ve lost two guys that were absolutely going to be there at Quail Hollow.”
The Presidents Cup is a match-play event with 30 total matches, comprised of a 12-person U.S. Team and a 12-person International Team. The U.S. leads 11-1-1.
Here’s a look at the six players Immelman selected on Tuesday to fill out his team.
Half of the U.S. team for Captain Davis Love III qualified at the completion of the BMW Championship.
WILMINGTON, Del. — Half of the 12-man team to represent the stars and stripes at the Presidents Cup in Charlotte in September officially qualified Sunday.
There wasn’t much drama as the top six in the standings all held serve and remained among the six players that booked their place on Team USA Captain Davis Love III’s team that will try to retain the cup at Quail Hollow Club.
Love will announce his six captain’s picks on Sept. 6.
The Presidents Cup is a four-day, match play event with 30 total matches, comprised of a 12-person U.S. Team and 12-person International Team.
Let’s take a look at who the six U.S. qualifiers will be.
President Biden joins a list of world leaders who have held this position.
President Joe Biden will have a special role at the 2022 Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Biden accepted an invitation to be the Honorary Chairman of the Presidents Cup, which is scheduled Sept. 20-25.
“We are thankful for President Biden’s acceptance of our invitation to serve as Honorary Chairman for the 2022 Presidents Cup with the event’s return to the United States,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. “The Presidents Cup has a long-standing tradition of hosting world leaders, spanning several decades and many countries across all party lines, and the addition of President Biden to that list of men and women will help promote and grow the event worldwide and further our efforts in unifying people through the game of golf.”
Biden is a member at Wilmington Country Club in Wilmington, Delaware, host of this week’s BMW Championship, the second leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs.
At the 2019 Presidents Cup, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison served in the role. Former U.S. Presidents Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford have also served as Honorary Chairman.
The U.S. Team has won 11 of the 13 Presidents Cups, and the only win by the International Team came at the 1998 event in Melbourne. A historic 17-17 tie came in 2003 when the event was held in South Africa.
