Presidents Cup is a sleeping giant after decades of torture. Australia is key to a dramatic awakening

Golf fans prepare to say goodbye to the Presidents Cup as we know it.

This week’s tournament at Medinah in Chicago will be the last of its kind because change is coming.

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Once again, the International team are massive underdogs to defeat the Americans in the biennial event.

Australian major winner Geoff Ogilvy has been given the duty of trying to snap the USA’s stranglehold on the event with the Internationals not having won since five-time Open champion Peter Thomson captained them to their sole victory.

Ogilvy’s company completed the redesign at Medinah’s famous No.3 course, and the 2006 US Open winner will need to impart every single piece of course wisdom on his team to spur them onto victory.

With the Americans boasting seven of the top ten players in the world, it is little wonder that former professional turned commentator Brandel Chamblee likened the challenge ahead of the Internationals to “not like climbing Mt Everest, it’s more like Mt Olympus on Mars”.

The Internationals have certainly come close in recent times to breaking their now 28-year drought.

Under the captaincy of Canada’s Mike Weir, they were level at 5-5 after two days of play in Montreal two years ago.

A team hit heavily by players defecting to LIV Golf fought valiantly at Quail Hollow in North Carolina in 2022.

Before that blow, the Internationals led heading into the final day at Royal Melbourne before falling to a Tiger Woods-led American team in 2019.

Four years earlier in Korea, they lost by a solitary point.

The Internationals have certainly been competitive – particularly when hosting the event – but things still need to change.

And they will change.

But to create that necessary change, renowned golf writer Eamonn Lynch penned his belief that “the worst thing that could happen at Medinah is for Geoff Ogilvy’s International squad to pull off a shock victory”.

“Sure, even some U.S. fans might enjoy a romantic underdog upset and a reversal of three decades of drubbings, but it would also embolden optimists and opportunists to hail the dawn of a new era of parity, and it would set back an effort to fix things by a decade or more,” Lynch continued in his Golfweek column.

Lynch strongly believes that the Presidents Cup can be a juggernaut at Kingston Heath in Melbourne in two years’ time if the Brandt Snedeker captained Americans extend their winning streak to 12.

There is already change a foot for the event’s return to Australia.

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The PGA Tour have enlisted the organisers behind tennis’ Australian Open to turn try create a spectator experience that has seen fans flood to Melbourne Park in record numbers the last few Januarys.

They have also worked with Golf Australia to ensure the course routing at this year’s Rory McIlroy starring Australian Open at Kingston Heath is the same as it will be for the Presidents Cup.

Those measures are nowhere near enough in the mind of Lynch.

He believes the PGA Tour’s ownership of the Presidents Cup is holding the event back.

LIV golfers like Cameron Smith and Jaoquin Niemann have been banished from the International team for three straight editions because the event is owned and run by the PGA Tour.

Whereas Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm and Tyrell Hatton all played in last year’s Ryder Cup because that is owned and operated by the PGA of America and the DP World Tour.

The Internationals do not enjoy the same autonomy as the Europeans and Lynch believes that needs to change.

“For an event that wants to emulate the Ryder Cup, the Presidents Cup does the exact opposite at every turn. Instead of cultivating a real rivalry, it feels like divisions of the same parent company meeting for a friendly off-site,” he wrote.

“(PGA Tour CEO Brian) Rolapp should sell the International team, whether to a conglomeration of overseas tours, a wealthy individual who fancies being a player in the sport alongside a solvent partner, or to private equity. This is a platform with value but no direction.

“Let a new owner decide captaincies, eligibility, resources and foreign venues. Hanging a new shingle won’t necessarily make it more competitive, but it would at least mirror one crucial aspect of the Ryder Cup by granting the International team the self-determination necessary to give itself the best opportunity to succeed.”

That idea has already found a sympathetic ear in current International team captain Ogilvy.

“I’m not very well-schooled in corporate structure, but it would be advantageous to the event, I think, to get a little bit more separation between the two teams,” the Australian told Front Office Sports.

The issue standing in the way of such a move is that the Presidents Cup is profitable.

As long as that remains the case, decisions will continue to be made through an American lens.

That is why other ideas have never been acted upon.

A prominent suggestion that comes up regularly during the Presidents Cup to make the competition more competitive is that the International team should always host.

The American television audience’s desire for a friendly time zone and the resulting broadcast dollars stop that idea in its tracks.

While Australia’s Min Woo Lee was asked about the possibility of making the event mixed gender given seven players in the top ten of the women’s world rankings would qualify for the international team.

Lee’s sister, three-time major winner Minjee, would be among the potential LPGA stars to feature in a mixed gender Presidents Cup.

“I would love that. Obviously, my sister plays golf, so it would be nice to have her on the team and me on the team,” Lee said.

“But I think it would be very fun. It would make it interesting, for sure. Obviously, there’s things that have to be measured with the girls and the guys. But even just the best ball, like mixed best ball, mixed foursome would be unbelievable. That would be so fun. Yeah, I wish -- hopefully in the future.”

The Australian team of Minjee Lee, Hannah Green, Grace Kim and Steph Kyriacou won the LPGA’s team’s events the International Crown last year.

Little brother Min Woo could not help but poke fun at his older sister, however.

“I mean the worst player is my sister, and she’s 16th in the world,” he said with a laugh of the strength of the International women.

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A mixed gender event would no doubt be popular with the Australian players – Green called it for back in 2024 – but the need for a formal partnership, joint scheduling and revenue sharing with the LPGA is a prospect that is yet to excite the PGA Tour.

“I’ve never talked to anyone about it,” Ogilvy told reporters at Medinah on Tuesday.

“Obviously you hear it thrown around a lot. I think it would be a fascinating event. Clearly international women’s golf is really strong. Perhaps the LPGA could create that similar deal to the Presidents Cup, an off-season event, in a creative way.”

“This is so special for us. The connection we’ve got -- I mean, on the outside looking in, it doesn’t seem like we’ve got a connection,” Ogilvy added.

“But every single one of us had to travel a long way to play out our dream, if you like, and that’s one of the connections that our team has. The women would have the same feeling. So that would be a cool thing.”

A shift to include the world’s best female golfers or the PGA Tour selling off the International team might be a bridge too far.

But a Presidents Cup circuit breaker is coming.

Ogilvy alluded to it in his comments above, the current International team cherish the event too much and have put in too much effort to not turn things around.

A breakthrough win is coming.

“For us, we’ve always been the underdogs in this, but I feel like on paper the European Ryder Cup team is always the underdogs a little bit, and that hasn’t seemed to affect their results at all over the last few years,” Open champion Ryan Fox of New Zealand told reporters at Medinah on Tuesday.

“I think we’re trying to channel a little bit of that and come together. As I said, we do have a chance to do something incredible when we’ve got a couple of guys on the team who have played a lot of these that we really want to get a win for.

“I think that’s our motivation. I mean, Adam (Scott) especially over there. I think we’re kind of trying to hopefully be able to flip the pressure on the U.S.

“I feel like they’re expected to win, and if we can get on top early and create some pressure, there will be more pressure come on them from other places and hopefully we can take advantage of that.”

Kingston Heath in two years’ time would be the perfect setting for a drought breaking win after piling on that pressure Fox mentioned.

The stars are potentially aligning if a shock upset does not eventuate this week.

Who knows what may happen with LIV Golf in the coming months and years, but several stars of the breakaway league could come back to bolster the International team if ‘LIV 2.0’ turns out to be a fizzer.

One of the best things to come from LIV was its Adelaide event and packed galleries showed their ability to will Australians over the line with Cameron Smith’s Ripper GC securing a team victory.

The crowds at Royal Melbourne in 2019 did their best to stick it up the Americans, but there was also an aspect of Tigermania that week that distracted from the contest.

Woods was a playing captain seven years ago, and the Melbourne crowd could be getting behind another in 2028.

Whispers have circulated through Australian golf for many years that Adam Scott will be the International team captain at Kingston Heath.

When those murmurs began, few expected the 46-year-old to still be a team regular.

An impressive run through the FedEx Cup playoffs and a runner-up finish at the DP World Tour’s BMW PGA Championship last week showed that Scott is not playing to slow down anytime soon.

And it would be prophetic if he was to finally taste Presidents Cup glory on home soil.

Even though Scott debuted in the famous tie in South Africa 23 years ago, the journey to winning at Kingston Heath will be the culmination of almost a decade long project to transform the Internationals into champions.

“I think of course the team has evolved, but I would say significantly since 2019,” Scott told reporters at Medinah on Tuesday.

“And I think the creation of the shield is really starting to, you know, gain some legs, really now amongst the player group. There’s a group of guys on this team they have been playing for the second or third time, but the younger players behind them are now aspiring to play under the shield.

“I think that recognition and playing for something has become important to the international players. We all are proud to do it. So, I think that’s been the biggest evolution of the International Team.

“I think we’re seeing also, we’re a lot more familiar with each other these days than probably when I started. You know, although we’re still from all four corners of the globe, we’re generally playing a lot together on the PGA Tour. I think it’s much easier for us to come together as a group for this week.”

Much has been made in the discrepancy in world rankings between the two teams, but the Internationals are truly building.

They may not boast the calibre of former world No.1s Greg Norman, Nick Price, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh like they had in the 1990s when the Presidents Cup began.

But excitement machines Min Woo Lee, Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim are feisty competitors and are no longer rookies.

Ryan Fox is a major champion, Si Woo Kim is on the verge of the world’s top ten, while experienced campaigners, and Masters champions, Scott and Hideki Matsuyama offer invaluable on course leadership.

“Obviously, the experience is a nice thing for me coming in, and also being able to share some of that experience with the other guys like Ernie (Els) did with me my first Cup,” Scott said.

“You know, he really probably needed to take me under his wing that week, and he did and it was an incredible experience for me.

“I don’t know if we have anyone on the team who really needs that this week. Even our rookies are quite seasoned, you know, like they’re great players. No one’s really out of their depth.”

That strong belief within the International team will certainly hold them in good stead going forward.

The USA has had the upper hand on paper in the Ryder Cup too in recent times, but that has not delivered them victory in Rome and New York.

It might not be a drastic as selling off the International team or bringing in the world’s best female golfers into the event, but change is coming to the Presidents Cup in some shape or form.

And Australians are going to experience it first-hand at Kingston Heath in 2028.

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