Team USA kept its unbroken run in the Presidents Cup, defeating the International side once again and reigniting the conversation about whether the biennial event needs a structural overhaul. Brandt Snedeker’s squad engineered the biggest comeback ever seen on the final day at Medinah, snatching 9.5 of the 12 singles points available on Sunday and sealing a record‑extending 11th straight victory. While the final score of 17‑13 suggests a comfortable margin, the match‑play narrative was far tighter than the numbers imply. The International team swept the Friday foursomes, and for only the fourth time in history they entered the final day in the lead, creating a genuine suspense that lasted until the last putt.
Despite the drama, the International side ultimately fell short, extending their drought of a first Presidents Cup win since 1998. Geoff Ogilvy’s squad matched the Americans through the first three days but was outperformed on Sunday, leaving Team USA with 14 wins out of the 16 Cups contested to date.
"It was sort of on a knife's edge all day," Ogilvy reflected. "If a few of those one‑down holes had turned into one‑up, the numbers would look very different and who knows how the momentum would have shifted." The current format spans four days and includes 30 matches—one day longer and two matches more than the Ryder Cup or Solheim Cup. Because the talent gap between the United States and the rest of the world is wider in the Presidents Cup than in the Europe‑centric events, many observers wonder if a tighter schedule with fewer points might level the playing field.
Reducing the number of sessions—perhaps eliminating one of the Friday or Saturday foursomes/four‑ball rounds—would give captains more flexibility to sit weaker players and lessen the pressure on marquee names to appear in every session. Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee has been vocal about this idea: "They need to start the Presidents Cup on Friday and cut the points down to 24. If the Ryder Cup is fought over 28 points, why should the Presidents Cup be 30 when the talent disparity is greater?" He notes that the first three editions of the event, held from 1994 to 1998, were decided after three days, with the teams dead‑even at that stage. Extending the competition to a fourth day, Chamblee argues, simply allows the stronger side—historically the United States—to assert its dominance more clearly.
Another complicating factor is the PGA Tour’s ownership of the Presidents Cup, which automatically excludes LIV Golf players. This rule has hit the International roster harder than the U.S. team, because many of the world’s top non‑American players have migrated to LIV. In the early era of the Cup, the International squad boasted former world No.
1s such as Greg Norman, Nick Price, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh. Since the rise of LIV, players like Chile’s Joaquin Niemann, 2022 Open champion Cameron Smith, Lucas Herbert and veteran Louis Oosthuizen are no longer eligible, thinning the talent pool.
Chamblee suggests giving the International side the autonomy to pick its own players, asking, "Would you really think they wouldn’t select some LIV players if they were allowed?" He points out that the European Ryder Cup team can include players from the DP World Tour, such as Jon Rahm, because the governing bodies have separate eligibility rules. The absence of six key players from the 2019 International roster, who have since defected to LIV, has noticeably reduced the competitiveness of the event.
Some have even floated the notion of a mixed‑gender Presidents Cup to create a more balanced contest. As of late September, five of the world’s top six women golfers would qualify for an International side under the current criteria.
Former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley mused to Sky Sports that a partnership between the PGA Tour and the LPGA could produce a co‑ed event, though he admitted the idea faces institutional resistance. He added, "If you combined half the women internationally with the men, you’d have a formidable team that could truly challenge America." Integrating female players would raise logistical questions—different tee positions, format tweaks, scheduling coordination, and tour agreements—but the concept has enthusiastic supporters. Korean golfer Min Woo Lee said he would love to see his sister, Minjee Lee, on a future mixed team, noting that a mixed best‑ball or foursome would be "unbelievable." Beyond format tweaks, there is a growing call to move the event out of the United States more regularly. To date, only four nations outside the U.S.—South Africa, Australia, Canada and South Korea—have hosted the Cup, even though 18 different nationalities have been represented on the International side.
South Africa, a country with a rich golf heritage and strong recent attendance at LIV events, last hosted the Cup in 2003 when the match ended in a historic 15‑15 tie. Expanding the host pool to include the Middle East, India, Japan or New Zealand could broaden the tournament’s global appeal and inspire a new generation of international talent. A more global footprint might also help Team USA improve its Ryder Cup road record, which has suffered in recent years. Europe has long used auxiliary team events—such as the now‑defunct Seve Trophy, the current Hero Cup, and the former EurAsia Cup—to give players extra match‑play experience in a team setting.
Those events have produced Ryder Cup debutants like Rasmus Hojgaard, who used the Hero Cup as a springboard to the European team. Creating a similar biennial competition for the International side, perhaps scheduled in the early season like the Hero Cup, could provide valuable practice and allow captains to experiment with pairings ahead of the Presidents Cup. The challenge would be fitting it into an already crowded calendar, especially since the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup alternate years. One possibility is to stage a post‑Ryder Cup event that is not PGA‑Tour‑run, giving the International players another high‑profile platform.
In summary, the United States will head back to team competition next September in the Ryder Cup at Adare Manor, Ireland, while the next Presidents Cup is slated for 2028 at Kingston Heath Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia. Whether the format will be trimmed, the eligibility rules loosened, or a mixed‑gender version introduced remains to be seen, but the growing disparity in results suggests that some evolution is inevitable if the Presidents Cup hopes to retain its relevance and excitement for fans worldwide.