Trevor Immelman was on the spot this week but by Tuesday, he basically did the best he could with what he had to work with as far a piecing together his International squad for the upcoming Presidents Cup matches.
Trevor’s automatic guys included bell-cow Hideki Matsuyama along with young upstart Tom Kim, Tour Championship contender Sungjae Im, Canadian flash Corey Conners, Aussie icon Adam Scott and PGA contender Mito Pereira.
His captain’s picks looked like this: Taylor Pendrith, Sebastian Munoz, Si Woo Kim, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, K.H Lee and Cam Davis.
For the U.S. side, Davis Love III’s automatic qualifiers are Patrick Cantlay, Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele, Sam Burns, Scottie Scheffler and Tony Finau. Love announced his six captain’s picks Wednesday morning — they were pretty much no-brainers — Jordan Spieth, Max Homa, Billy Horschel Collin Morikawa, Kevin Kisner and Cameron Young.
On paper, the U.S. squad is overwhelming. But that’s the way it was at the last meeting in Melbourne in 2019. Captain Ernie Els did an amazing job of creating team spirit and as a result, the Internationals led 4-1 after day one and 6 1/2 to 3 1/2 after day two. After the Saturday morning round, it was 9-5 in favor of the Internationals and it took a U.S. afternoon rally to cut it to 10-8, Internationals, heading into the Sunday singles, where the U.S. rallied and eventually prevailed, 16-14.
“Yeah, I don’t really think I have to play the underdog role up I think everybody knows it,” Immelman said this week. “Everybody sees it clear as day. Our team has had a lot of adversity thrown at us over the last year or so. But adversity makes you stronger.”
Team bonding was the key at Royal Melbourne (2019), where Immelman was an assistant to Els. It was one great team united under one banner – a newly designed team crest – rather than a team of talented individuals carrying their various flags. Previous International teams wouldn’t come together until the end and it was usually too late to impact the leaderboards. Els changed all that. He got rid of the cliques.
Trevor got his gang together for a scouting trip to Quail Hollow outside Charlotte, scene of the matches that start September 22.
“It was an amazing experience for all of us to spend a little time together and get an early look at the golf course,” Immelman said. “The thing that excites me the most is — I know now that we have 12 players that are hungry, and we have 12 players that wanted to be there.” The only player absent from Immelman’s outing was Matsuyama, who was back in Japan getting treatment for his neck injury.
Yes, this go-round was a challenge for Immelman, who saw his roster of potential stars on his team gutted by LIV defections — Cam Smith, Marc Leishman, Abe Ancer, Joaquin Niemann and Carlos Ortiz, who all took the Infidel money and fled.
Immelman had the correct term for the LIV when he referred to it as “a pain in the ass.”
Regardless of the pain, his team is set.
Several International players spoke up this week and the common theme was — the challenge is tough but International spirits are running high.
It’s match play which means anything can happen.
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2 Comments
baxter cepeda
So your saying there’s a chance.
One thing that helps the decimated internationals is a lot less bomber power on the US team by not having the DJs and Brooks and Bryson’s of the world. Even gooch.
Dj is playing high level golf. Bryson and Brooks are still working their way back—both looking more lean and less massive, which should help moving forward—but their bomber power is always a big loss in a team event.
Now playing in Europe no doubt the US inadvertently benefits from an aging but steady Eddie and solid putter like Kisner; whom would not be on this team if not for the black balling going on.
Same with Billy; who im concerned for wasting so much of his energy with this whole situation.
Billy we all know exactly how you feel more than any other player. But your arguments are mostly emotional. Breathe dude. Relax. Between being tough on everyone off the course and still tough on yourself on the course; I mean seriously this guy gonna need a long hiatus soon if he keeps all this up.
Anyway we can’t trust Billy’s putter as much as Kis but he too will be more euro player like, steady, which may benefit on the European set up.
Funny thing is now the euro tour is supposedly the world tour, shouldn’t they represent the international team.
?
That would help Trevor.
It’s also funny listening to all the Europeans saying they have less of a problem with euros at Wentworth and even taking part in the Ryder cup. I bet they don’t.
They have problems with guys like Gooch and Ancer who never got to the point where they played plenty euro events like Reed. Now Sergio didn’t play wentworth much either but he is in the somewhat invited group because he has supported the euro tour more. The argument from rahm is because the euros tour is not as big as the pga tour.
It seems to me these euros on the pga tour want their cake and eat it too. They want the pga tour to feed most of the euro elites; but then also to let the LIv euros come back to the euros tour; maybe even play the Ryder cup; but not in favor of the Americans return to the pga tour. And I’m pretty sure they prefer no LIv Americans in the Ryder cup.
In short:
#Contradictions abound
But I better stop now…I don’t want to get censored.
Tom Edrington
The Presidents Cup was created by the PGA Tour to keep our guys tuned for the Ryder Cup……it was created to showcase international players who are not eligible for the Ryder Cup, simple as that…..no one has ever proposed Euros on the team, they have the Ryder Cup, international guys had nothing prior to Presidents Cup. Again, be careful about promoting LIV on these comment pages and keep the comments below “essay” size. Please. You don’t get censored, you get “edited” the way LIV hands its players scripted comments, thus pretty much controlling their comments to the media, which doesn’t have much regard for the exhibition series. Don’t “control” your comments the way LIV controls what it’s guys say but again, no LIV promotion here…..we stand for human rights, free speech, not murdering Washington Posts correspondent who spoke out against “The Regime” and we are opposed to a government stealing from its employee pension plan to help Phil Mickelson pay off his gambling debts.