International Team likely favourites in Canada

BY Bruce Young | US PGA Tour | 2007 The Presidents Cup | 26 Sep 2007

The might of both United States and International golf will clash this week at the Royal Montreal Golf Club in the Montreal suburb of Ile Bizard when the seventh staging of the Presidents Cup takes place.

The event is being played outside of the United States for only the third occasion, the other two being when the International side blitzed the Americans at Royal Melbourne in 1998 and in 2003 when a controversial halve was declared in South Africa after Tiger Woods and Ernie Els had been unable to break the deadlock before darkness fell in their playoff to determine the winner.

The current overall Presidents Cup standing between the teams is 4½ to the Americans and 1½ to the Internationals with the Americans leading the cumulative points table by 105 to 91.

In 2007 the International Team has a greater level of playing experience in Presidents Cup encounters in so much that they boast 26 caps verses the 20 of the Americans. It should be remembered however that the Americans have accumulated an additional 26 Ryder Cup caps, providing the edge in overall teams match experience.

The American team has three rookies in their team, Hunter Mahan, Woody Austin and Lucas Glover while the International Team is carrying only two who have no experience in this arena – Geoff Ogilvy and Rory Sabbatini. Only one player from each team, Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson has played all six previous Presidents Cup encounters.

The Royal Montreal Golf Club is the oldest Golf Club in North America having been established in 1873 but the golf course on which this event will be played was built in 1959 and designed by Dick Wilson. The Blue Course at the Royal Montreal Golf Club has played host to the PGA Tour’s Canadian Open on four occasions, the most memorable of those was when Tiger Woods missed his first cut on the PGA Tour as a professional in 1997. It would take him another eight years to miss another.

In terms of current world rankings the Internationals have an advantage. They boast nine players from the Word Ranking top twenty while for the US side only five are ranked in that category. This appears to offer the Internationals a possible winning edge, not only on paper but also because they have shown a capacity to perform better in the Four-ball and Foursomes. They must, therefore, be ranked as the favourites to win.

The event has been extended from three to four days on the last three occasions on which it has been held, extending the points total available for the week to 34, the extra day allowing for two extra matches on days one and two. Thursday is reserved for one round of Foursomes where all twelve players in each team are exposed to the competition and then on Friday the Four-ball is played with again all twelve players in each team involved.

On day three (Saturday) both Four-ball and Foursomes are played with only ten from each side involved in each of the encounters. Two players per side will sit out each match. Ten points are therefore available on day three making a total of 22 points having already been decided by the time the final day of 12 singles matches gets underway.

Four Australians, Adam Scott, Geoff Ogilvy, Stuart Appleby and Nick O’Hern are included in the International Team this year with O’Hern gaining Gary Player’s nod as a captain’s selection.

It will be important for the Internationals to enter the final day in the lead or within a point or two of the Americans as they would then stand a very good chance of holding aloft the Presidents Cup Trophy for only the second occasion.

International Team

• Adam Scott
• Angel Cabrera
• Ernie Els
• Gary Player (Captain)
• Geoff Ogilvy
• Ian Baker-Finch (Captain’s Assistant)
• K.J. Choi
• Nick O’Hern (Captain’s selection)
• Retief Goosen
• Rory Sabbatini
• Stuart Appleby
• Trevor Immelman
• Vijay Singh
• Mike Weir (Captain’s selection)

US Team

• Charles Howell III
• David Toms
• Hunter Mahan (Captain’s selection)
• Jack Nicklaus (Captain)
• Jeff Sluman (Captain’s Assistant)
• Jim Furyk
• Lucas Glover (Captain’s selection)
• Phil Mickelson
• Scott Verplank
• Steve Stricker
• Stewart Cink
• Tiger Woods
• Woody Austin
• Zach Johnson