The Chicago area was an annual PGA Tour site for decades, but not so recently. This week’s Presidents Cup at Medinah is the circuit’s first visit since Olympia Fields hosted the BMW Championship in 2023.
While the area hosted big team events in the 2009 Solheim Cup at Rich Harvest Farms and the 2012 Ryder Cup at Medinah, it has never had one quite like this Presidents Cup. It matches 12-player teams from the U.S. and the rest of the world minus Europe.
The Ryder Cup at Medinah resulted in a heartbreaking loss for the U.S. side when the Europeans dominated singles play on the final day. A loss in the Presidents Cup, which begins its four-day competition on Thursday after two days of practice rounds, would be a shocker. The U.S. has a 13-1-1 record in the Presidents Cup and has won the last 10 meetings.
Onesided wins aside, the U.S. players aren’t taking the Presidents Cup lightly. Two of them – Jacob Bridgeman and Jackson Koivun – dispensed with a week of rest following the FedEx Cup Playoffs to compete in a new event, the Biltmore Championship Asheville in North Carolina.
Bridgeman and Koivun were sharp, too. Bridgeman shot 61 on Sunday to win the title with a 26-under-par 258 while Koivun, a 21-year old just out of Auburn University, was five strokes back in a tie for fifth. Both will make their Presidents Cups debuts this week.
“The reason I played was that I wanted to prep,’’ said Bridgeman. “I practiced hard during the Playoffs to make the team. I was giving it my full effort, and I used (last week) to see if I was ready for this week.’’
Clearly he was, and so was former U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun who won against a stronger field at the BMW PGA Championship in London for a different reason. He was fuming because U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker didn’t include him in his picks for the Medinah event when the rosters were finalized to weeks ago.
“I was playing (in London) with a huge chip on my shoulder. I had something to prove,’’ said Spaun. “Being left off the Presidents Cup team was very disappointing, and I wanted to prove that I belonged on that team. But everything happens for a reason. All the best to the team this week at Medinah, and I’ll be watching.’’
The last time the U.S. team didn’t win the Presidents Cup was in 2013, when the matches in South Africa ended in a tie. The only American loss was in 1998 in Australia.
No players on the LIV Tour were chosen for the Presidents Cup, and the Internationals could have used Chile’s Joaquin Niemann and Australia’s Cam Smith. Bryson DeChambeau would have strengthened the U.S. side, but it already includes world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, John Deere Classic champion Chris Gotterup, two-time U.S. Open winner Wyndham Clark, Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas and Patrick Cantlay.
Top players for the Internationals, captained by Geoff Ogilvy, are Korea’s Si Woo Kim, New Zealand’s Adam Fox and Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama.