The Presidents Cup has a systemic flaw. Here are two ways to make it fair<\/a><\/p>\nThe US won easily in the first outing, 20-12, with Norman sitting out of the competition and Ernie Els only recently emerging as a force. But the International team still fielded a line-up that included world No.1 Price, fellow Zimbabwean Mark McNulty (15th in the world), Singh, David Frost and Steve Elkington. When Norman joined the contingent in 1996, the host Yanks pulled out a 16\u00bd-15\u00bd victory thanks to Fred Couples beating Singh in the anchor singles match.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely I\u2019m surprised by it when you look at the quality of players who have represented the International side,\u201d said Irwin, who went 2-1, splitting foursomes matches before beating Robert Allenby in singles, 1 up. \u201cI can only think that as time has gone on, the teams come in with a sense of trepidation because the US has built up all the momentum over the years. Early on it was new to those players, but the game is so different now. There are great players from everywhere who play the tour and know how to compete.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, the Internationals have been close a time or two, but in the 15 previous meetings, the US has won by three points or more 10 times and is riding a 10-match winning streak.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at the world ranking and the Americans are clearly the stronger team most years,\u201d Graham said. \u201cSo in a way I\u2019m not that surprised. Early on, we had players who just weren\u2019t equipped to take on the Americans in matchplay, but that\u2019s really not the case anymore, so I would have thought we\u2019d have more success at this stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the Ryder Cup, the Americans usually looked stronger on paper, but Europe finds ways to win,\u201d Graham continued. \u201c[The Europeans] played with a chip on their shoulders and they\u2019ve won quite often. The odds would say that should happen at some point in the Presidents Cup a time or two, but it hasn\u2019t. So in that regard I am very surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"360066\"\/](\"https:\/\/golfdigest.sports.sndimg.com\/content\/dam\/images\/golfdigest\/fullset\/2026\/9\/1994-president-cup-winning-us-team.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.966.725.suffix\/1790004152295.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
With the Americans winning the inaugural match, the event has become a lop-sided affair with the US leading 13-1-1 overall. [Photo: Gary Newkirk]<\/p>\n
Irwin and Graham agree that while the International team has cultural challenges to overcome that European players do not, the talent on the International side has been sufficient.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey don\u2019t have to rally around one flagpole to play well,\u201d said Irwin, a three-time US Open champion who somehow was never tapped for a Ryder Cup captaincy. \u201cThey play in America. They know one another. They have outstanding rosters. It comes down to each player doing his best. It\u2019s always an intangible, and you don\u2019t ever know what that is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the Presidents Cup needs,\u201d Graham said, \u201cis that one wake-up moment. The International team needs to do what the Europeans did to the United States [by winning in 1987 at Muirfield Village]. All of a sudden, it became a battle, and it became a more desirable thing to be in the Ryder Cup. It lit a fire. I don\u2019t know if that can happen next week or not, but my hope is it happens soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Europe for a number of years fielded a powerful line-up led by Sir Nick Faldo, Ian Woosnam, Sandy Lyle, Jose Maria Olazabal, Bernhard Langer and their emotional firebrand, Seve Ballesteros, while captain Tony Jacklin changed the culture with strong leadership.<\/p>\n
Irwin said that he watched Graham pour his heart into that first Presidents Cup, and Gary Player, Nick Price and Ernie Els subsequently have brought passion to the International captaincy. Els further attempted to strengthen the concept of International unity by creating its own team symbol, the shield.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, something has been missing more than just missing putts. Or maybe it is that simple.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonest to God, it\u2019s shocking to me they haven\u2019t won more,\u201d said Azinger, who led a US victory over Europe in the 2008 Ryder Cup at Valhalla Golf Club in Kentucky. \u201cIf you\u2019d predicted in 1994 that the International side would have only one win at this point, I would have bet big you would be wrong. It\u2019s pretty amazing. I think one aspect of it is the support. Who rallies around the International team the way American and European fans pull for their teams? That\u2019s what makes the Ryder Cup special is how the fans get so engaged.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graham agrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need more support rallying around the International players,\u201d said the two-time major winner. \u201cThere\u2019s no chanting about, \u2018Go Internationals, go Internationals!\u2019 And then they hear everybody screaming for USA, USA. And it\u2019s hard for the International team to gain any emotional ground. And I think the only way that that will happen is if, all of a sudden, they win and people go, \u2018Oh, what the hell just happened?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI always feel like the players we have are capable. But it\u2019s always somewhat of an uphill battle. I didn\u2019t see that happening the way it has played out,\u201d Graham added.<\/p>\n
Well, he has plenty of company.<\/p>\n
FULL\u00a0GOLF DIGEST\u00a0PRESIDENTS CUP COVERAGE HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Photo: PGA Tour Photo Services] Imagine you\u2019re the commissioner of the PGA Tour in 1993 surveying the golf…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[4225,64,63,469434,1379,755,138747,469435,44,322270,32035,85],"class_list":["post-900751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-article","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-david-graham","tag-features","tag-golf","tag-golf-digest","tag-hale-irwin","tag-news","tag-paul-azinger","tag-presidents-cup","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}