More than 25 years since its inception, the biennial event’s global impact continues to be felt.
To measure the scope of the Presidents Cup, a suggestion is to travel back in time – 28 years, to be exact – when this international team golf tournament was introduced.
It was the brainchild of Tim Finchem, back when he was a deputy for PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman. But when Beman handed the reins over to Finchem in mid-1994, going full throttle on the debut of Presidents Cup consumed him.
The naysayers were lined up, but Finchem was steadfast in his belief that great players from beyond the borders of America and Europe deserved to compete on a global stage in an international team match. Should you point to the lopsided results – the Americans are 11-1-1 and have won the past eight in a row – you would be an egregious point-misser.
The Presidents Cup was about bringing the game a little closer together because global golf, Finchem insisted, was here to stay. He knew it would be a somewhat awkward fit at first, but he begged for patience and offered a vision that a lot of people struggled with.
To wit, there would be a day when the world’s best players competed in the same tournaments dozens of time per year and American golf fans would know the international stars quite well.
If he were the type to seek the limelight, Finchem could take a bow. But instead, let’s take a measurement to indicate how his vision has played out beautifully.
In 1994, half the International team needed to introduce themselves to their American counterparts at the Robert Trent Jones Club in Gainesville, Virginia. Aussie Bradley Hughes had played in only six PGA Tour tournaments that season, while Mark McNulty of Zimbabwe (five), Peter Senior (three) and Kiwi Frank Nobilo (two) attended even fewer. As for Robert Allenby and Tsukasa Watanabe of Japan, they hadn’t played at all.
In all, the 12 International team members had combined for just 141 PGA Tour starts in 1994, which is not an indictment of them whatsoever. It is a reminder of the era, when global traffic was limited to the world’s very elite names and while the Presidents Cup perhaps appealed back then to those who are intrigued by players they know little about, Finchem was convinced the stature of the competition would grow as American fans became educated about the Aussies and South Africans, the South Americans and the Canadians.
“In 20 years,” he told reporters back then, “we can have an event of really premier quality.”
Critique Finchem’s statement as much as you’d like, there is an argument to be made that he’s been proven correct. Three of the past five competitions have been close (16-14 in Melbourne in 2019; a one-point match in South Korea in 2015; a closer-than-it-looks 18½-15½ decision at Muirfield Village in 2013), and then there is the familiarity aspect: whereas 28 years ago the 12-man International team combined for just 141 PGA Tour starts, in 2021-2022 the top 12 in the current standings account for a whopping 251.
That is a growth of 78 percent and the difference can be seen up and down the line-up. Of the dozen players who currently rank in the top 12 (that’s not to say they’re on the team, only that they’re currently the highest-ranked Internationals), eight have played in more than 20 tournaments.
Budding stars from Chile (Mito Pereira, 25) and South Korea (K.H. Lee, 24) head the list of workhorses and while Canadians Mackenzie Hughes and Adam Hadwin have both been piling up the starts for a few years, another countryman, Corey Conners, has maintained an admirable consistency. Meanwhile, Chilean Joaquin Niemann won at famed Riviera earlier this year and has established himself as a dynamic competitor.
Factor in South Korean Sungjae Im, who with “only” 22 starts this season is almost slacking off, and you have an International team that is getting more and more comfortable in the US by the week. That, in turn, is why optimism continues to be an International strong suit.
“We’re still talking about 18 holes of matchplay, and we’ve got to remember anything can happen in an 18-hole match,” Adam Scott told reporters at the Rocket Mortgage Classic in late July. “Momentum plays a big deal in these things. We saw that at the last one. We kind of got up early and we nearly hung on [to win].”
The veteran that he is, Scott would tell you that even as he and his mates have become more comfortable in the US thanks to a full complement of PGA Tour tournaments, another aspect of this biennial affair continues to make matters difficult. That is, an American team that is constantly deep and consistently young.
How deep? Each of the top 12 players in the US team standings is ranked in the top 20 in the Official World Golf Ranking. They include No.1 Scottie Scheffler and four others in the first 10: Patrick Cantlay, No.4; Xander Schauffele, No.6; Justin Thomas, No.7; and Collin Morikawa, No.8.
How young? Three are just 25 years old (Morikawa; No.14 Will Zalatoris; and No.17 Cameron Young) and five others are in their 20s. As for the “old” guard sitting in the top 12 of the US standings, we’re talking Cantlay, 30; Max Homa, 31; Tony Finau, 32; and Billy Horschel, 35.
That’s deep, that’s young and that’s one potent group at the top of the standings, though it needs to be emphasised again that there’s no guarantee these will be the 12 who’ll tee it up from September 22-25 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. Davis Love III gets six captain’s picks, so only the top six in the standings are automatic choices.
Still, it’s an indication that the Americans will be heavy favourites to win for a ninth straight time. Then again, being the underdog is nothing new to the Aussies, the South Africans, the Fijians, the Kiwis, the Canadians, the South Americans, the Japanese and
the Koreans.
True, they’ve not yet come up with an answer to this biennial puzzle, but you’d be doing them a large disservice if you sold them short. The big picture does them justice as you look at the 2021-2022 season: five of their top 12 players in the standings (Smith, Matsuyama, Im, Lee and Niemann) have combined for eight wins on the PGA Tour this season.
True, the Americans have bigger numbers (nine of the top 12 players in the standings have combined for 18 victories), but Finchem’s vision has played out as he predicted. International players have established global stature thanks to a high level of play on the PGA Tour and that will be prominently displayed in this year’s Presidents Cup.
Focus on the individuals who’ll make up the two line-ups, and not the past results, and you’ll likely find 15 of the world’s top 20 names. As promised more than 20 years ago, the Presidents Cup has reached a level of premier quality.
Featured image: Getty Images – Ben Jared
