If I ever think about this Presidents Cup again, I suspect two thoughts will linger above all others.<\/p>\n
The International squad really did just about everything right for the first three days. This was the culmination of a lot of hard work put in by Ernie Els, Trevor Immelman, Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Weir, and even a few bit players like Camilo Villegas. They have created a cohesive culture despite language barriers, despite having nothing to unify them beyond pride, and despite only playing together every other year (unlike the United States, which has the Ryder Cup). What Ogilvy and Immelman have done to get the team to this point is remarkable, and they have every right to feel extremely proud for getting to the point where the United States was ripe for an upset.<\/p>\n
This was also \u2014 to be candid \u2014 probably their best shot.<\/p>\n
Another one like it may never come.<\/p>\n
It would be great for the event if it did, if this close call was one more brick in the road that leads to the promised land. Maybe when the Presidents Cup is contested at Kingston Heath in 2028. That would make for a great story. Adam Scott, someone who has been tortured by this event for half his life, could even take the reins as the captain and win on home soil. What a cool story that would be.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m just not convinced it will happen.<\/p>\n
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The American side feels a bit like the kid in school who never studies, who walks through the hallways with unwarranted confidence, and the nerds can\u2019t wait for the bill to eventually come due. Everyone predicts the moment is about to arrive when they will finally get their comeuppance. Then on test day, the slacker survives on talent and luck, and no lessons are ever learned.<\/p>\n
That is essentially the Presidents Cup. It\u2019s not fair, but that\u2019s what talent does.<\/p>\n
It was tough to see Ogilvy get a little emotional on the green in an interview with Golf Channel. You could tell how badly he wanted this, and how close it seemed. He made a great point about how the International team really doesn\u2019t have a lot to bond it together besides their shared experiences. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a brotherhood of people who had to travel all around the world to live out their dream of playing golf,\u201d Ogilvy said.<\/p>\n
Most of them were asked to put thousands of miles between themselves and their families to chase that dream, particularly as the PGA Tour became the center of the golf universe. The degree of difficulty is greater for them than the Americans. Immelman famously said in 2022 that he was tired of people viewing the International squad as \u201ca joke,\u201d and Ogilvy echoed that sentiment on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an incredible group of people, and it’s not just the players here,\u201d Ogilvy said. \u201cThe International team is a very big group of people, and they’re very passionate about this team. They love the shield. They love this — they love everything about this tournament and this team. Trevor’s right; this team is no joke. We’re coming, and when we crack this thing, it’s going to get really good.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you were going to second-guess anything Ogilvy did, maybe you could spend some time on his decision to throw Corey Conners out early in singles. Conners got predictably creamed by Justin Thomas, and it helped the United States build the momentum it needed throughout the day. But Ogilvy had to play Conners \u2014 his worst putter by far \u2014 at some point in the lineup. You could argue his best chance to earn a point was actually against Thomas, who struggled mightily at times during this Presidents Cup.<\/p>\n
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In the end, the Internationals needed their veterans to perform on Sunday, and it simply didn\u2019t happen. Scott putted well against Patrick Cantlay but hit it poorly and lost, 2 and 1. Si Woo Kim was stunned by Jackson Koivun, 2 up. Hideki Matsuyama and Ryan Fox were mediocre in losses to Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele. The United States ended up winning 21 holes on the back nine, 11 with par. That swung the cup right there.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just felt like it was sort of right on a knife edge for a massive part of the day,\u201d Ogilvy said. \u201dIf you hole a couple of putts at the right time and get a bit more yellow on the board at the right time, the momentum, and the crowd sort of stays out of it a little bit. Just sort of started drifting away for us in the last few hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
I want to believe this will all pay off someday for the International side. They really did give it a hell of an effort, and pushed almost all the right buttons. But in the end, the cruelest and truest of golf lessons was reaffirmed.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s really hard to overcome a talent deficit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If I ever think about this Presidents Cup again, I suspect two thoughts will linger above all others.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":864034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[427,99],"class_list":["post-864033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=864033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/864033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/864034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=864033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=864033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=864033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}