Presidents Cup Heads to San Francisco
The Presidents Cup hasn't quite garnered the following that the Ryder Cup has; some even believe that the Presidents Cup will eventually be called off. The American PGA Tour stars have never fully embraced it (Lanny Wadkins famously said, about the first one in 1994, "Why would I want to go halfway around the world to play a bunch of guys from Orlando?"). And the ad-hoc International team doesn't have any regional cohesion.
That's what the naysayers say (or is nay?). But the Presidents Cup is a work in progress, so long as that progress is allowed to continue. We see great golfers playing great golf; we see match play pressure crack some and we see other golfers thrive. The Presidents Cup has given us multiple years of Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player as captains; the infamous dark-out tie in South Africa; and the image of Woody Austin falling into a pond.
And it's young. This week marks only the eighth playing. Nobody can expect the Presidents Cup to match the Ryder Cup in intensity and emotion when the Presidents Cup has such a short history.
Greg Norman and Fred Couples are the captains this year, with Couples asking some guy named Michael Jordan to serve as an assistant captain. One of the storylines during the competition will be the performance of Norman's two captain's picks, Japanese teen phenom Ryo Ishikawa and the severely slumping Adam Scott.
If you need a reminder of the full team rosters, check out the Presidents Cup tournament page.
Comments
I just love the team events like the President’s Cup and, especially, the Ryder Cup. They just seem to have more drama and tension than the regular tour events do. You also always seem to see more unbelievable shots in these events, ie. holed shots from the fairway, holes-in-one, and a plethora of long putts made. I’ve never understood why the US seems to always win the President’s Cup and have so much trouble, with the exception of last year, in the Ryder Cup. You would think that the international talent pool would be larger than the European pool. The Europeans are tough! It took all the US had to beat them. Go USA!!