It was a disappointing deal for American team golf of late At the Walker Cup, the The American released a massive number of singles Great Britain and Ireland lost their first Walker Cup since 2015. So, the The American Solheim Cup team lost 15-13 to the Europeans at Bernardus. Throw in back-to-back Ryder Cup defeats to the Europeans, and there’s no doubt that American team golf needs a good shake-up.
Fortunately for the Red, White and Blue, history suggests this week at the Presidents Cup 2026 providing the pick-me-up the Americans are looking for before turning their attention to the 2027 Ryder Cup.
The Americans are 13-1-1 in Presidents Cup history. The only time they lost was a 20.5-11.5 shellacking in 1998. Since that defeat, the Americans have gone 11-0-1, including 10 straight wins over the Internationals. Of the last 12 Presidents Cups, only the 2019 and 2015 editions saw the International team keep the final deficit to two points.
Here are the last 12 results from the International team’s only win:
2024: USA wins 18.5-11.5
2022: USA won 17.5-12.5
2019: USA wins 16-14
2017: USA wins 19-11
2015: USA won 15.5-14.5
2013: The US won 18.5-15.5
2011: USA wins 19-15
2009: USA won 19.5-14.5
2007: the United States wins 19.5-14.5
2005: The US won 18.5-15.5
2003: Tie
2000: USA wins 21.5-10.5
There are a number of reasons the Americans dominate the Presidents Cup in ways they haven’t in the Ryder Cup, and all of those reasons should be evident this week at Medinah Country Club in Chicago. But one in particular will rear its head again and give the Internationals a massive mountain to climb.
“I think the American side, every time they play, their world ranking almost never goes higher than 20th, while the 12th international player is sometimes 60th in the world.” 2011 Masters champion Charl Schwartzel said in 2012 about the depth of the US side. A year later, after the United States won 18.5-15.5, international captain Nick Price said that the depth of the American side “absolutely” was the difference.
Schwartzel’s analysis from 15 years ago was as true then as it is now. The American list is always stacked with star players in the top 20-25 of the Official World Golf Ranking and the Data Golf ranking. In 2022, the United States had five players in the OWGR’s top 10 and nine in the top 15. Their lowest ranked player on that team was Kevin Kisner, who was No. 25 at the time. The first player of the Internationals in the 2022 team, Hideki Matsuyama, was ranked 17th. Their lowest ranked player was Taylor Pendrith, who was ranked 109th. (It is important to note that the 2022 Presidents Cup was unusual because it came right after the arrival of LIV Golf, which meant that Cameron Smith, ranked No. 3 in the world at the time, and Joaquin Niemann could not play after joining the rival league, which zapped the Internationals of the necessary talent.)
But the story was the same in 2024 when the Americans had the No. 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13 and 14 golfers in the world, while the Internationals had only one player in the top 15. Max Homa was the lowest American (25), while the International side reached 60 with Mackenzie Hughes.
In Medinah this week, the Americans will have eight players in the top 11 but two out of the top 25: Patrick Cantlay (28) and Rookie Jackson Koivun (57). The Internationals, meanwhile, have just one player in the top 15 (Si Woo Kim, 14) and have five outside the top 50, including two outside the top 80 (Nick Taylor and Christiaan Bezuidenhout).
The Americans’ boasted depth gives them several advantages, but the most important is that it ensures that their top players do not have to be dominant forces for the team to succeed. For example, a No. 1 in the world Scottie Scheffler went 3-5-1 in the Presidents Cup, but the Americans also won both competitions well thanks to Cantlay (7-2-1), Schauffele (7-2), Collin Morikawa (6-2) and Jordan Spieth (5-0 in 2022). The depth of the Americans gives them a buffer that allows them to easily support one or two of their stars who have an off week. The Internationals, on the other hand, do not have that benefit. They need Hideki Matsuyama and Adam Scott to put up points while getting help from players on the roster. But the Internationals did not take this off their horses. Scott has the most International points in Presidents Cup history, but is 20-28-6 overall. Matsuyama also has a poor record at 9-13-5. That left the International team facing a problem they didn’t have the ability to solve.
In order for the Internationals to make the Presidents’ Cup a contest and potentially pull off a historic encounter, they need to be able to count on Matsuyama and Scott to provide at least three to four points each in the four days. If they can achieve that and Si Woo Kim, who is playing the best golf of anyone on the International side, can also become a mainstay, they might give it a chance. But if Scott and Matsuyama struggle again, the Internationals will ask a lot from the likes of Nico Echavarria, Nick Taylor, Bezuidenhout and Ryo Hisatsune to keep them close.
The Americans again have talent and depth in Medinah. But they often have it in the Ryder Cup, and the Europeans have found a way to overcome this, routinely sending the Americans into the desert to look for answers after scratching defeats. The Europeans have a cohesion that the International side is always trying to cultivate. This cohesion galvanized the Europeans and gave them an immeasurable weapon against the more talented American side (at least on paper).
The Internationals have said they feel they are building something similar. It is a more difficult task when you have a team consisting of players from five different continents who speak different languages, so it takes more. But they believe they are making progress and we know that all it takes is one win, one defeat, to turn the Presidents’ Cup into something different.
“You talk to the Europeans, how much they want to beat the Americans, and there’s that rivalry there, you can tell, and you can hear it when they talk about it,” Jason Day spoke about the Ryder Cup ahead of the 2024 Presidents Cup. “This is also America versus Europe. I feel like the way the guys see each other, I think it’s changed here. I think they’re very driven and passionate about this tournament now. As I look at Ben (An) and Tom (Kim) now, as there are guys who – like the young guys up to the first guys.
“When you have an experience like Adam Scott, you hear him talk, and I think this is his 11th, so he’s been on the losing end of those for a long time. You can hear how much he wants to win one. I think it only takes one. If we can get one, I think it will change the tide a little bit.”
The tide may change one day at the Presidents Cup. But American golf needs a win, and its biggest weapon against the Internationals (and history), says they’ll get one Sunday at Medina.