The competition is taking place in a particularly complex year for world golf, due to the fractures caused by the advance of LIV Golf, the Arab Super League which, with large sums of money, is convincing many players to be part of its events.
These golfers have been banned from the PGA Tour and cannot participate in the Presidents Cup: this is the case of the Australian Cameron Smith and the Chilean Joaquin Niemann, who would have been qualified automatic had they not made the choice towards the LIV.
For the same reason, the Indian Anirban Lahiri was unable to be chosen as the captain of the International team. The case of Will Zalatoris is very different: the USA team, in fact, has to do without him due to injury.
Presidents Cup, schedule
The United States shows up with Davis Love III captain, Fred Couples, Zach Johnson, Steve Stricker and Webb Simpson deputy captains.
The 12 players are Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Sam Burns, Justin Thomas, Tony Finau, Jordan Spieth, Collin Morikawa, Max Homa, Billy Horschel, Cameron Young, Kevin Kisner. There are six rookies: among them, Scheffler makes his direct debut with the status of number 1 in the world ranking.
The International team is at the start with Trevor Immelman (South Africa) captain, K. J. Choi (South Korea), Geoff Ogilvy (Australia), Camilo Villegas (Colombia) and Mike Weir (Canada). The 12 golfers are Hideki Matsuyama (Japan), Sungjae Im, Joo-hyung “Tom” Kim, Kyoung-hoon “K.
H. ” Lee, Si-woo Kim (South Korea), Adam Scott, Cameron Davis (Australia), Corey Conners, Taylor Pendrith (Canada), Mito Pereira (Chile), Christiaan Bezuidenhout (South Africa), Sebastian Muñoz (Venezuela). There are eight rookies: rather, the only ones with previous experiences are Matsuyama, Im, Scott and Kim.
The favors of the prediction are obviously all pending on the side of the Americans, who field a team that had rarely been so strong, net of the absence of Zalatoris. In the previous 13 editions, however, the stars and stripes team has almost always been dominant, with 11 successes; only one international victory, dating back to 1998 in Melbourne, Australia, and a draw, which occurred to George, in South Africa.
Unlike the Ryder Cup, there are four days of competition here and not three. It starts on Thursday with five foursomes (two pairs of golfers play one ball) and then continues on Friday with five fourballs (two pairs of golfers play with their respective balls; there are therefore four in play).
On Saturday, however, four foursomes are played in the morning and four fourballs in the afternoon. Finally, Sunday is the day of the 12 single matches, which will determine the final score. To win the Presidents Cup, you need 15.5 points.
In case of 15-15, the cup will be shared by the two teams. This choice can be traced back to what happened in 2003: after a very nice match, there was a playoff between Tiger Woods and South African Ernie Els of great quality, which was interrupted by darkness after three holes. At that point, it was decided to leave the situation as it was, in a draw.
