With an overall scoreline of 11-1 (and one tie) it doesn’t take too much to rock the Presidents Cup. The idea of the matches, which began in 1994, was to give those non-European superstars the chance to take on the Americans in a Ryder Cup-style format and we could feast our eyes on the likes of Greg Norman, Vijay Singh and Ernie Els in a matchplay arena as well as spreading the gospel of golf around the world. The Ryder Cup worked like a dream so why not have another version of it but, this time, led by the PGA Tour.
Three of the first four matches were bizarrely played in the States, at the Robert Trent Jones GC, and all resulted in American wins but there was a crushing victory at Royal Melbourne in 1998 – Shigeki Maruyama being the unlikely leading points scorer with five points – and then a sensational tie at Fancourt when Ernie Els and Tiger Woods played three play-off holes before darkness brought things to a close.
That was 2003 and was probably peak Presidents Cup. The last eight matches have all gone the Americans’ way, the majority of them by comfortable margins and, for the past 20 years, there has been plenty of chatter about involving the women of the LPGA Tour to bring in the might of the Korean stars.
But then the last time that the teams met, as far back as December 2019, captain Els very nearly pulled off the unlikely against Tiger Woods’ side at Royal Melbourne, brilliantly bringing together the different nationalities, continents and voices. There was a new attitude and, though the South African and his backroom team, a new belief.
Even against one of the strongest American sides the International Team led after each of the first four sessions and went into the singles with a 10-8 advantage before it was business as usual on the Sunday and the visitors sneaked home by 16-14.
“Great strides were made, especially in our team play. I really felt that our team play was really the core of our team, and that never was. We never felt like we could play foursomes or fourball together as a team. We did that well,” Els explained in…
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