MEDINAH, Ill. — The imbalance of results for Team USA in its biggest team golf matches has driven us to this point: where the Americans winning the Presidents Cup feels like a formality, but winning the Ryder Cup feels harder than free-soloing El Capitan.
Disagree? My colleague Nick Piastowski asked U.S. players to explain the difference, and most seemed stumped.
The two events are run by different organizations but are similar enough in theory that there should be connective tissue. And here, at Medinah, there’s more of it than ever before. In the literal sense, there’s the fact that the last home loss in either event, before last year’s Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, came at Medinah in 2012. Three of the American captains this week — Keegan Bradley, Jim Furyk and Webb Simpson — were on that losing U.S. team.
In the less literal sense, there’s how this event projects onto the proceedings 12 months from now in Ireland.
Barring an International victory this week — which sportsbooks will tell you is highly unlikely — there should be something accomplished from this September ’26 proving ground that offers a better understanding for September ’27, and while you’d never get Capt. Snedeker to admit it after one Presidents Cup day, his chess moves have the look of Ryder Cup intentionality.
There’s the monkey-off-their-back theory of forcing Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns to get a win on the board. It’s old news that they’re old friends, but it was always a bit jarring to be reminded of their winless record as partners. Trotting them out again Thursday — albeit as the two best golfers on the planet, analytically speaking — is a decision that doesn’t just invoke this week. It says, we want you two to keep doing this at 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 easily could have elected to pair Patrick Cantlay with another vet — like, say, his pal Xander Schauffele — but instead sent out Cantlay with Chris Gotterup, to help ease Gotterup into his first-ever team event. Early this year, it became clear Gotterup would make the squad, and, at only 27, is bound to be on next year’s U.S. Ryder Cup team, too. Of all the pros who could taken a liking to Gotterup, it’s been Schauffele and Cantlay who have taken him under their wings, playing many practice rounds with him over the Tour season.
As it happened, all three players lost their matches Thursday (Schauffele played with Cameron Young), and Team Schauffele-Cantlay is headed back out as a pair Friday afternoon.
Cantlay sherpaing for Gotterup didn’t lead to points, but still felt like a job that needed to get done — in much the same way Ryder Cup Europe spends a lot of money on the unoriginally named “Team Cup,” played in January of 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 Team Cup, but given how the events have played out, the purpose may not need to be much different.
We can look at a number of other Snedeker moves that, viewed through the prism of Ryder Cup prep, feel quite obvious. His assistant captains include Keegan Bradley, the last Ryder Cup captain, and Jim Furyk, the next one. Picking relatively unproven Jackson Koivun, the 21-year-old wunderkind, over, say, J.J. 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 (at-home-against-the-Internationals) present to break him in.
There’s also no better team-golf big brother to have waiting for Koivun than Justin Thomas. The two share much more than just spots on Team USA — like the same agent and an affection for SEC football — but have been so inseparable since arriving on property, it feels like an assignment passed down from Snedeker himself: Look after the kid, JT.
On Thursday, Thomas even went so far as to carry Koivun in their match, finishing atop the Strokes Gained ranking while his partner finished 22nd out of 24. Will we remember those details in 358 days, across the pond in Ireland? No. But we’ll remember that’s where something started. It might even feel obvious by the time we get there.
The post Intentionally or not, Ryder Cup prep is underway at this Presidents Cup appeared first on Golf.
