In this installment of Ask Alan, our own Alan Shipnuck takes reader questions following the USA’s win over the Internationals in the Presidents Cup, 5/18-11.
You’ve been given the reins to determine what the 2026 Presidents Cup will look like. What changes, if any, would you make? @DREAMWeaver2784
I will start by moving the event to TPC Sawgrass. It is the ultimate risk-reward course and would be deceptive in match play. Next, I’ll have the captains who bring the actual juice: Phil Mickelson for the USA and Greg Norman for the Internationals. Enough with the vanilla good guys! This event needs real animosity, not fake tough guys deleting tweets. It’s clear that LIV players will be welcomed back; it makes no sense to stop the most popular player in the game, Bryson DeChambeau, and some of the biggest stars in international golf. I love four rounds of golf – hey, my Thursdays are boring otherwise – but the format gets too much, so I’m mixing in a session of the worst ball scramble and a session of Wolf Hammer. Malbon will make uniforms for both teams. And I’m banning Patrick Cantlay simply because his constipated appearance is bad TV.
Can we get rid of Cantlay? I can never support a team where he is. @pcmancini
Despite the answer above, we cannot. And, actually, it’s a good thing: He’s the only antihero left on the PGA Tour. It’s too bad that Cantlay is no longer backing Goldman Sachs because Cantlay reminds me of Matt Taibbi’s famous description of Goldman: “A great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly clogging its blood supply to whatever it holds smell of money”. OK, maybe that’s a bit harsh, but Cantlay is one of the main obstacles in the endless PIF-Tour negotiations and therefore partially responsible for the game remaining broken. He remains bitter that he turned down a $75 million offer from LIV and is now looking for pounds of flesh. But Cantlay likes him because he’s been America’s toughest player in the last two Ryder and Presidents Cups. It adds spice to the whole thing, even if it’s spicy.
I’m all for Keegan’s redemption since he was cheated on two years ago. But after those three shots to WIN Pres. Cups, neither of which were that close, I’d rather have him on the headset than have a keg in his hand at Bethpage. Do you think of Keegan as captain? @jackback24
Yes, Bradley was bleeding to death at the end of his singles match against a game Hideki Matsuyama, but let’s not forget that Keegan managed to win the match for his second point of the week. Pitching will always be a weakness, but the rest of his game is strong enough to remain a threat. If he’s an automatic qualifier for the Ryder Cup, he’ll probably do it, but I think this Prez Cup made it clear that he needs to have a limited role, maybe a four-ball session and then sit out on his own until singles, when there are no more decisions. to be done.
Can Tom Kim expect any backlash from American crowds at future PGA Tour regular events as a result of his antics this week? #ascalan @deskeenan65
Kim reminds me of my toddler Monty, who loves to bark at the breeders… but one time when Amazon’s son accidentally opened the front door, the dog hid behind the couch. No one is taking Kim’s actions seriously enough to be really pushed. The Presidents Cup is a fun product and Kim made it more interesting, which was much needed. He’s just too harmless to have bad blood.
Still scratching my meager follicles trying to figure out Weir’s Saturday pairings. Your thoughts? @colmburke
Weir sending out the exact same teams for the afternoon session after getting smoked in the morning is among the most shocking things I’ve seen in three decades of Presidents Cup coverage. The 3-1 loss in the afternoon session condemned the internationals to an insurmountable deficit, but had other knockdown effects. Benching four guys the day before the singles is a death blow to their confidence and Weir also forced five of his players to play all five games. Their blazing energy on Saturday afternoon and Sunday killed any chance of an international comeback. You can’t underestimate the Canada factor here, as three of the eight players Weir went through so much on Saturday are fellow Canucks he picked as captain. He was giving the home crowd what they wanted and the thrill of a lifetime for the players he mentored. The Internationals were so outstanding that they were going to lose this Cup no matter what the captains did, but it feels like Weir’s strange decision-making robbed us of a more competitive event.
… and the fact that internationals were denied the ability to pick their best team. @GaryDaly
There’s no question here, so I’ll just say that, for Strokes Gained numbers, replacing Max Homme with Bryson DeChambeau would have given the USA a bigger boost than subbing internationals in Joaco Niemann and Cam Smith for any of the smaller internationals. Smith and Niemann certainly have more flair and more box office than, say, Taylor Pendrith and Christiaan Bezuidenhout, but the advanced metrics don’t suggest they would have changed the game.
Can you think of a more anticipated Ryder Cup in recent years? @leaderboardco
Yes, Bethpage will be outstanding. I sincerely hope no alcohol is served so the Noo Yawk crowd doesn’t get completely out of control. Either way, it promises to be the most overheated environment since the Coastal War in 1991. In the last two decades, only one road team has dominated: Europe, with its epic comeback at Medinah in 2012. The core of the American team is so strong and all these players know that the Americans’ ability is in question after pathetic performances in two of the last three Cups. Meanwhile, Europe is overflowing with amazing young talent. Players from Rory McIlroy to Jordan Spieth have talked about a Ryder Cup road win as one of the things they covet most in the game. Regardless of how the teams shake out, it’s going to be an incredible Cup. But, as always, the tournament wars hinge on all of this, as Europe would be severely diminished without Jon Rahm and the USA could lose the firepower of DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka. (Other LIV goaltenders potentially in the mix include Tyrrell Hatton and Sergio Garcia and even Dustin Johnson, who, lest we all forget, went 5-0 in the last Ryder Cup he played in and I think that he needs to take one last breath in the majors, which would strengthen his candidacy.) But the Ryder Cup is bigger than any player, and Bethpage will be a corker.
Do you honestly think Rahm won’t be in Bethpage!? @pocketaces718
He will be there. Note that the European Tour is taking its sweet time hearing Rahm’s appeal of unpaid fines that would have prevented him, as a LIV loyalist, from competing in Euro Tour events. I’ll bet the farm that the Tour will wait a few more weeks to deal with the appeal, allowing Rahm to play in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship and the Masters in Andalucia. That would give him the required minimum of four starts this season on the Euro Tour to retain his membership and qualify for next year’s Ryder Cup. Of course, Rahm will most likely lose his appeal, which means that in order to compete in Bethpage, the fines will have to be paid. LIV will actually collect the money, but for Rahm, a proud and stubborn personality, it’s a matter of principle. He is offended that after years of supporting the Euro Tour, he would deserve to be sanctioned. But Rahm loves the Ryder Cup and knows his team needs him and it would be a huge black mark on his career if he doesn’t play, likely dooming Europe to defeat over a dispute of bureaucratic pain. At the end of the day, I believe he will retire, the fines will be quietly paid, and he will be a burden to Bethpage.
What do you think about the idea of ​​adding LPGA players to Presidents Cup teams in the future? @GothGolfGirl
This comes up in every Presidents Cup, and I certainly like the idea because, as constructed, the Prez will always be second fiddle to the Ryder Cup, and it would take a radical rethink to change that. (There’s essentially zero public outrage over messing up the Ryder Cup format, despite five lopsided results.) But the Prez Cup is one of the PGA Tour’s crown jewels, and Ponte Vedra’s masters don’t want their players sharing the stage. . . In the scenario of adding professional women to the Presidents Cup, what about European women – would they be left out forever? If you add them, the whole nationalistic flavor of the competition becomes more and more muddled. Now we have the Grant Thornton Invitational, bringing together the best PGA Tour and LPGA players; Scandinavian mixes for their Euro counterparts; the Sandbelt Invitational, in which Australian men and women play together, and the Pebble Beach Invitational, a fun off-season event where male and female pros compete on the same table. The last decade has been a boom time for mixed tournaments, but I don’t think it will ever happen in a Cup.
Feel like golf desperately needs an off-season. There is never any construction. As much as I love the game, it never seems to end. @HighFades
It used to be different. I remember Mickelson at a PGA Championship way back in August ended a press conference by telling reporters he’d see them next at Torrey Pines … which was five months away. The FedEx Cup and the Race to Dubai and the fall season has changed all that and not for the better. That’s one thing LIV got right: less is more. The tournament would be much better if the schedule was shortened by at least a third.
Have you considered donating your eyebrows to charity? @scottgolfs
I am not sure that any NGO is equipped for such a large donation.
Main photo caption: Patrick Cantlay celebrates a dramatic win during the Presidents Cup last weekend. (GETTY IMAGES/Harry How)
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