Team USA had latterly been having an unhappy time of it in golf. Last September they lost the Ryder Cup to Europe on home soil. In early September of this year their men amateur golfers were sensationally blown away by Great Britain & Ireland in the second session of singles in the Walker Cup, leaving GB&I with a thoroughly improbable one-point victory. The following week, the US went into the singles of the Solheim Cup in an 8-8 tie but ultimately emerged as the losers. I guess American golf fans were thinking ‘Thank God for the Presidents Cup!’ Again! But, this time, only just.
Going into this year’s renewal at Medinah in Chicago, the United States record in their match against the International Team read 13-1-1. Their only loss had come in the third one, in 1998, the tied match being in 2003 – both those contests being held outside the US. Since then the outcomes have been one-way traffic. However, before proceedings got underway at Medinah last Sunday afternoon, the Internationals held a three-point advantage, the first-time ever on American soil they had held a lead going into the singles. But history was not to be in the making. The USA got nine wins and a half from the 12 matches played and eventually ran out quite comfortable victors. This time, the opposite of the Ryder Cup in 2012, the Meltdown at Medinah was on the other side.
If one had to identify one specific area in which the hosts came close to being undone it would not require the intellectual faculties of Sherlock Holmes. The primary problem is that the Americans seem to forget how to play golf when it comes to the foursomes. At Medinah last week, the Internationals swept the opening series of foursomes 5-0 and tied 2-2 in the same format on Saturday afternoon. In the 2024 match, the USA had fared only a little better, losing 6-3 overall in the foursomes even though they won the match by seven points. This may look like a shocker but it was no surprise. At the 2023 Ryder Cup, Europe won the foursomes by 7-1. At Bethpage last autumn, it was 6-2.
“It’s pretty glaring that we’re not prepared for that format,” said Jim Furyk, who, as the US captain at Adare Manor next September, will be the guy chiefly responsible for resolving this concern at the next Ryder Cup. Maybe the first decision should be not to select Scottie Scheffler to play the foursomes. Brandt Snedeker selected him once rather than twice last week (he lost) and in the Ryder Cup he has lost all four foursomes he’s played, including a 9&7 pummelling (a Ryder Cup record) at the hands of Ludvig Åberg and Viktor Hovland in Rome when he partnered Brooks Koepka. Snedeker suggested, surely simplistically, that his partners worry about “letting down the best player in the world”. The more likely truth is that in foursomes Scheffler seldom resembles the world No. 1.
None of this is a worry for Luke Donald., of course And, looking on the bright side for Team USA, Jim has got almost a year to fix it.
You can follow Robert Green on Twitter @robrtgreen and enjoy his other blog f-factors.com as well as his golf archive on robertgreen-golf.com
Related: United States Overturn Three-Point Deficit to Win 11th Straight Presidents Cup
Robert Green
Robert Green is a former editor of Golf World and Golf International magazines and the author of four books on golf, including Seve: Golf’s Flawed Genius. He has played golf on more than 450 courses around the world, occasionally acceptably.