MEDINAH, Ill. – The lopsided results for Team USA in its biggest team golf matches have brought us to this point: where the Americans win the Presidents’ Cup it feels like a formality, but winning the Ryder Cup feels harder than free-soloing El Capitan.
Do you disagree? My partner Nick Piastowski asked the American players to explain the differenceand most seemed stumped.
Both events are managed by different organizations, but they are similar enough in theory that there should be connective tissue. And here, in Medinathere is more than ever. In the literal sense, there is the fact that the last home loss in any case, before last year’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, came to Medinah in 2012. Three of the American captains this week – Keegan Bradley, Jim Furyk and Webb Simpson – were on that losing team of the United States.
In the less literal sense, there is how this event projects on the procedure from now to 12 months in Ireland.
Barring an International win this week – which the sportsbooks will tell you is highly unlikely – there must be something accomplished by this test of September 26 that offers a better understanding for September 27, and while you never had Captain Snedeker to admit after one day of the Presidents Cup, his chess moves have the aspect of Ryder Cup intentionality.
There is the theory of the monkey on his back to force Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns to get a victory on the board. It’s old news that they’re old friends, but it was still a bit of a bummer to be reminded of their winless record as partners. Out again on Thursday – although as the two best golfers on the planet, analytically speaking – is a decision that is not only invoked this week. It is said, we want you two to continue to do this in Ryder Cups and Presidents Cups in the future, but we need to see something in the win column. Scheffler and Burns did just that, coming back to beat Min Woo Lee and Sungjae Im on the 18th hole.
Elsewhere on Thursday, Snedeker could have easily chosen to pair Patrick Cantlay with another vet – like, for example, his friend Xander Schauffele – but instead he sent Cantlay with Chris Gotterup, to help facilitate Gotterup in his first team event. Earlier this year, it became clear that Gotterup would make the team, and, at just 27 years old, he will also be on the US Ryder Cup team next year. Of all the pros who could take a liking to Gotterup, it was Schauffele and Cantlay who took him under their wings, playing many practice rounds with him during the Tour season.
As it happened, all three players lost their matches on Thursday (Schauffele played with Cameron Young), and the Schauffele-Cantlay team returned as a pair on Friday afternoon.
Cantlay sherpaing for Gotterup didn’t lead to points, but it still felt like a job that had to be done – in much the same way that the Ryder Cup Europe spends a lot of money on the unoriginally called “Team Cup”, played in January of the Ryder Cup years. All it does is serve as an introduction to team golf and as a breeding ground for future pairings and team bonding, but you get the point: It doesn’t hurt. The Presidents’ Cup is much bigger than the Teams’ Cup, but given how the events played out, the goal shouldn’t be much different.
We can look at a number of other moves by Snedeker that, viewed through the prism of Ryder Cup preparation, feel quite obvious. His assistant captains include Keegan Bradley, the last Ryder Cup captain, and Jim Furyk, the next. Choosing relatively unproven Jackson Koivun, the 21-year-old prodigy, over, say, JJ Spaun, is an obvious nod to future Cups. If Koivun is as good as everyone says he is – and, yes, he probably is – then there’s no time like the present (at-home-against-the-Internationals) to break him.
There is also no better big brother on the golf team to wait for Koivun than Justin Thomas. The two share much more than just spots on Team USA โ like the same agent and a love for SEC football โ but they’ve been so inseparable since they came into ownership, it feels like a mission passed down by Snedeker himself: Babysitting, JT.
On Thursday, Thomas even went so far as to lead Koivun in his match, finishing at the top of the Strokes Gained rankings while his partner finished 22nd out of 24. Are we going to remember those details in 358 days, across the pond in Ireland? No. But we have to remember that it is there something started It might even feel obvious by the time we get there.
