There are certain things in life you can count on — death, taxes and the United States Presidents Cup team standing at attention and honoring America when the National Anthem is played at the opening ceremony.
Thank goodness for golf, really, truly.
Thank goodness for our quality professional golfers.
Okay, now with that out of the way, we get down to brass tacks and take a look at what we might expect at the matches that begin on Thursday at unique Liberty National.
The first thing you can expect are some great views of New York City, Manhattan in particular.
You can expect water to come into play, there’s a lot of that stuff at Liberty National.
You can expect the Internationals to give it the good old college try.
You can also expect that the United States is going to win.
Jason Day tried the flip the narrative Tuesday when both teams sat in front of the Today Show’s studios, with NBC host Matt Lauer basically giving the International squad the bum’s rush. Lauer spent most of his time focused on Phil Mickelson, who brashly declared: “We have come together as a team.” Wonder how many sleepless nights it took Lefty to think that one up?
Lauer finally gave the Internationals a moment of his attention and Day declared:
“I think the Americans have a lot more pressure on them because everyone expects us to lose.”
Day was pretty much spot-on with that assessment.
Consider for a moment the fact that the U.S. team is extraordinarily top-heavy.
You have Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth ranked 1-2 in the world, you have Justin Thomas fourth, Rickie Fowler eighth, Brooks Koepka 11th and Matt Kuchar 12th.
The Internationals have just two players inside the top 12.
Hideki Matsuyama is their horse. He’s No. 3 in the world but is fresh off a totally crappy last four weeks where he looked like a five-handicapper during the FedEx Cup playoffs. His form coming in is awful unless you want to look at a decent back nine at East Lake where he made a bunch of birdies on the final day.
Day has had a pretty non-stellar season. He’s ranked seventh. And there you have the top two Internationals. Yeah, Day was right, everyone DOES expect these guys to lose.
The only thing that might affect the U.S. team coming in could be a bit of playoff fatigue. All those top six U.S. guys played every event, all were in the top 30 and might be dragging just a bit after East Lake.
Then there’s the Lefty Factor.
Phil Mickelson has more match play experience than the entire International team combined.
Lefty’s had some rest, he didn’t make it to East Lake.
Then there’s the bottom factor, and this refers to the Internationals.
When you look at Emiliano Grillo, Anirban Lahiri, Adam Hadwin and Jhonny Vegas, they simply don’t stack up well at all against the bottom of the U.S. team.
So yes, count us in among those “everyones” who expect the Internationals to lose.
Then there’s something else in the “no one knows what to expect” department.
Will the Golfer-In-Chief show up at Liberty National?
After all, President Donald Trump is the event’s honorary chairman.
Which means The Donald just might make an appearance.
