With so much world-ranked talent to pick from, United States team captain Brandt Snedeker honed in on chemistry in making the pairings for the first session of the Presidents Cup on Thursday at Medinah Country Club outside Chicago.
“I think our pairings worked out the way they did just because of more personality-wise than anything else,” Snedeker said after he and International Team captain Geoff Ogilvy alternated in announcing the pairings Wednesday. “I was trying to get guys comfortable. I feel like these events do a lot, put a lot of pressure on these guys. A lot of it’s internal, but there’s a lot of external pressure on them.”
The five four-ball (best-ball) matches on Thursday are the first of 30 matches this week. Five foursomes (alternate shot) matches are slated for Friday, followed by two sessions on Saturday split between four four-ball matches in the morning and four foursomes in the afternoon.
All 12 players on each team will compete in singles matches on Sunday.
The Americans prevailed 18 1/2-11 1/2 at Royal Montreal Golf Club in 2024. They’ll need 15 points to retain the cup and 15 1/2 to win it outright.
“These tournaments, I think everyone comes into these tournaments with optimism,” said Australian Ogilvy, who referenced the up-and-down nature of the 2024 Presidents Cup. “They’re very momentum-based tournaments. I mean, Montreal was an amazing first two days — 0-5 was a disaster for us, and then 5-0 was a big success. You could never have predicted that, where it takes a long time to get to this stage. We’ve been thinking about this for a long time. So we’re just excited to get going.”
Snedeker said there was a lot of “prep work” done in the months leading up to Wednesday’s pairings announcement so they could anticipate what would happen and have contingencies for golf course conditions and player health, citing two examples.
Barring that, the idea was that comfortable golfers play better.
“So we’re trying to create partnerships and a team vibe where everybody is as comfortable as possible,” Snedeker said. “… historically you look back, and we have all the data on what two rookies going out in the first session or two rookies going out in the second session looks like. So you try to look at that and see how it works out.”
The Americans are opening with the most obvious pairing, World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and his longtime friend Sam Burns, No. 8. They’ll face Min Woo Lee (No. 30) of Australia and Sungjae Im (No. 60) of South Korea.
Though Scheffler and Burns have a history going back to junior golf, they haven’t been paired together at an international event since 2023. They went a combined 0-3-1 as partners at the 2022 Presidents Cup and 2023 Ryder Cup.
For all of Scheffler’s relative dominance on the PGA Tour, the man with three-fourths of a career Grand Slam is 3-5-1 individually in two previous Presidents Cups. At the similarly formatted Ryder Cup, Scheffler is 3-6-3.
Match 2 features the U.S. pair of World No. 3 Cameron Young and No. 10 Xander Schauffele against Japanese duo Hideki Matsuyama (No. 27) and Ryo Hisatsune (No. 67).
Ogilvy could have paired No. 55 Corey Conners with fellow Canadian Nick Taylor (No. 85), but Taylor is sitting out Thursday’s session and No. 61 Nico Echavarria of Colombia is the partner.
They will go up against No. 25 Justin Thomas, a veteran of these competitions, and rookie Jackson Koivun (No. 57), meaning the former Alabama and Auburn college stars are on the same side.
“Jackson being a young kid, I feel like he’s really kind of found his way on our team really quickly,” Snedeker said. “I feel like he’s handled the adjustment really well. Justin is just a natural pairing for him. He’s somebody he’s comfortable with. I think he’ll do a great job putting his arm around him and show him how USA golf is meant to be played.”
U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark (No. 5) and No. 11 Collin Morikawa (6-2-0 in two previous Presidents Cups) face PGA Tour Champions standout Ryan Fox (No. 22) of New Zealand and Adam Scott of Australia. Scott, 46, has played in every edition of the Presidents Cup since 2003 and the team has gone 0-10-1. Fox is a rookie.
The fifth match pits No. 7 Chris Gotterup and No. 28 Patrick Cantlay of the U.S. team against the South Korean duo of No. 31 Tom Kim and No. 14 Si Woo Kim — the latter the top-ranked player on the International side. While Gotterup is a rookie, Cantlay is 10-4-0 individually in the Presidents Cup.
In addition to Taylor, the International team is not having South Africa’s Christiaan Bezuidenhout play on Thursday. The U.S. will have No. 6 Russell Henley and No. 20 Jacob Bridgeman (rookie) as spectators.