Golf: Team USA Expected to Sweep President’s Cup

The President’s Cup is an annual golfing event which has been held since 1994, albeit with a couple of years skipped. In 11 editions so far, the USA team has dominated the proceedings with Team International winning just once and a tie on another occasion. This year, the tournament will be held in the Liberty National Golf Club in New Jersey.

USA Captain Steve Stricker has picked a number of Top 30 ranked players, including numbers one, two and four. There are three current major champions on display and all of them represent Team USA.

The International side seems like they are top heavy and overdependent on the Australians, the South Africans and Hideki Matsuyama. All of them make up their leading seven qualifiers. It is a case for concern that Adam Scott was playing at a sub par level when last seen a month ago. Even Jason Day isn’t at the level he was when performing poorly on the losing side two years ago. To make matters worse, Matsuyama has seemingly gone off the boil.

Stricker had the liberty of selecting Phil Mickelson and top-25-ranked Charley Hoffman as wild cards. On the other end of the spectrum, Nick Price went with Anirban Lahiri and Emiliano Grillo. Good players, yes, but not yet anywhere near their equivalents on the US team. Neither made the TOUR Championship and in total seven of the Internationals missed out; only Mickelson failed to advance to East Lake from the US side, and he was at least close.

Needless to say, Team International has their work cut out for them. But it may be futile as USA are the strong favourites on home turf.