TELFER’S TAKE 28.9.26

You don’t normally expect to see American national sports teams wearing pink - red, yes for sure, but not bright pink. But on the last day of the Presidents Cup in Chicago, the entire 12-strong USA Team were sporting pink shirts which rather fittingly reflected the quality of their golf. They were quite simply “in the pink”, running away in 12 singles matches 10-2.

Perhaps it was inevitable that somewhere sometime before this Presidents Cup clash ended, the American golfing giant would wake up and remind the world of their depth in this sport. To win 9 of the 12 singles matches (1 match was tied) on the last day was nothing short of astounding, but that’s what they did. One by one the American players just squeezed the life out of their opponents who had dominated them so completely over the second and third days of this event.

To see players like Hideki Matsuyama and Min Woo Lee missing 3-foot putts late in their rounds when they were in positions to close out their matches was a grim reminder of how shattered mentally many of the International players had become.

This was the same American team who on Day Two were swept 5-0 by a rampant International team.

I’ve long argued that American golfers much prefer singles golf to foursomes and four ball.

The idea of standing on the tee and watching your mate tee off but not you, then you walk down the fairway and hit his ball is a ritual that seems foreign and odd to Americans who prefer the selfish world of being in your own isolated bubble which singles promotes. Golf is, whether you like it or not, basically a selfish game. Sure, camaraderie and 3 or 4 hours playing golf with your mates or partner has great social and recreational benefits but sharing with another person the exercise of hitting just one golf ball between you has never held much appeal to me, nor to most golfers I suspect.

Peter Thomson, the late iconic Australian golfer, winner of five Open Championships and a former successful Presidents Cup captain, once told me in a radio interview that he couldn’t understand why the best golfers in the world are forced to play foursomes as they must in both the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup events. He said, perhaps a little unfortunately, that it was only really played these days by veteran women on Tuesday mornings at their own clubs.

Yes, there would have been real disappointment in the International team after losing the singles day so comprehensively. However, the 17-13 final score didn’t really show how tight and close this Cup was for 3 and a half of the 4 days. Going into the last day with a 3-point lead, the Internationals only needed 5 points of the 12 on offer to clinch the Cup. Even though they failed again to win the Cup, they have shown us all that from now on, the pool of world class players from outside of America is sufficiently deep to enable future International teams to compete against strong American teams. And it may well be the next Presidents Cup, scheduled for Melbourne in 2028, when we will see the World prevail. At least in Melbourne they won’t have to endure that nauseatingly repetitious “USA USA” chant. At times I thought I was watching one of those truculent Trump rallies!

But for 2026, praise, and plenty of it, must be given to the American players for that all-round true team effort on the last day. All in all, the 12 Americans produced 54 birdies on the last day, the Internationals only 45.

Thankfully the unruly and blatantly offensive behaviour we witnessed 12 months ago in New York at the Ryder Cup wasn’t repeated here, although Scottie Scheffler was sufficiently offended on one hole by the crowd jeering at his Colombian opponent Nicolas Echavarria that he asked them to show respect and silence for his opponent while he was teeing off. The world Number One was still annoyed about the incident when he got to the green, so much so that he picked up his ball and conceded the hole to Echavarria. A fine act from a true golfing gentleman.

Ryan Fox had a pretty good Cup, winning 2 of his 4 matches. He was then given the honour of being the 12th and final player out in the singles. Clearly Captain Geoff Ogilvy wanted a player who could hold steady for 18 holes and block out the crowd factor and play well for 18 holes if necessary, especially coming down the stretch if the Cup was still undecided. Foxy went hard at the endwinning two holes back-to-back but it wasn’t enough as Xander Schauffele closed the deal 2 and 1. But the result had already been decided in America’s favour before Fox and his opponent reached

the 18th .