It was never going to be a Presidents Cup like all the rest, for so many reasons. It wasn’t Tom Weiskopf, skipping the Ryder Cup to go fishing, but the losses of Day and Koepka put the first damper on the teams that were initially selected. It wasn’t high treason, but Patrick Reed’s indefensible actions in the Bahamas were certain to galvanize support for the opposing squad. It wasn’t the MMA octagon, but the shoving of a spectator by a caddie served only to intensify matters. And those are the negatives!

The positive side includes the best golf course we’ve seen in decades, hosting a professional, international team event. Until now, only the Walker Cup venues were in the league of Royal Melbourne, in terms of design and conditioning. A player-captain, only the second in PrezCup history, and a legend at that, won all three of his matches and led his team to victory. Young players arrived on the scene, untested in international team competition; some became larger than life, while others shrunk from the glare of the sun. In the end, a 2-point differential, with more match swings that fit on our fingers and toes. The perfect end to the twenty-teens, the perfect event at the perfect time. Let’s wrap up the 2019 Presidents Cup, just in time for the holidays.

Ground control to Captain Tiger

Tiger finally got out of Tiger’s way in an international event. This thoughtful Woods was different than any we’ve seen in previous Ryder and Presidents Cups. Returned to proper mental, emotional and physical states, he carried this 2019 team on his rhomboids. Before a day-one shutout became a certainty, he lifted Justin Thomas to new heights, winning the day’s only USA point. When Friday looked to be another wound-licker for the USA contingent, Woods and Thomas once again pulled a point from the upside-down. Despite taking Saturday off, Woods’ shots were replaced by his wisdom. He rallied his lineup to 4.5 points of 8, trending in the direction needed for Sunday singles. Saving his most graceful for day four, Woods led Team America into the fray and never trailed in his 3 & 2 win over hot-handed Abraham Ancer. Forget the former holder of the nickname: there is only one Captain America. For all his flaws and his qualities, for his return from the depths of suffering, for his dedication to his craft, Captain America is, once again, Tiger Woods.

Ernie’s mistake

Quick thought: who would you say were the five strongest golfers this week for the International Team? I would have said Ancer, Sungjae Im, Cameron Smith, Louis Oosthuizen, and Hideki Matsuyama. And I would have led off with those five golfers, not the likes of C.T. Pan, Haotong Li, and Adam Hadwin. Els needed to get black flags on the board as soon as possible, and they failed. If your best can’t get it done early, your worst won’t later. Option two: put your veterans out first. Get Adam Scott, Marc Leishman, Louis Oosthuizen out in the first three matches. Let them carry their banner into the fracas, a position they’d earned. The brain trust of Team International, so strong in the pairings for three days, did an about-face on Sunday. It either abandoned the metrics that had carried them to the lead, or trusted a flawed algorithm when logic and history were paramount.

Flaws in the system

Team events will always be flawed in their conduct. To begin, the qualifiers who’ve lost their mojo. Golfers like Bryson DeChambeau, C.T. Pan, Haotong Li, and Matt Kuchar, and even Webb Simpson. Fellows who earned their points early on, but failed to show up for matches. There are ways of playing extremely well, yet losing to a hot hand. That was not the case for this quintet. Whatever collision of skill and fate that brought them to these heights, had abandoned them weeks and months before they stepped onto the first tee. Next come the captain’s picks. Until Sunday, not Reed, nor Niemann, nor Hadwin, had done a darned thing to help their squads. Their play was so weak, that their leaders were forced to brace against them. The exceptions were Woods himself, and Fowler, the latter having accrued 2 points in 3 appearances. This was as much a surprise as the failings of the other, aforementioned picks.

The enigma of foursomes

What is it about head-to-head play, that governs all professional, international team play? Is it tradition? Fine. Is it the notion of mano a mano and lining up against a solitary opponent? Okay. Is it the divergence from the norm of 18 holes of stroke play? Acceptable. Fourball is a known commodity. Golfers who succeed at medal play, are likely to play well in fourball matches. Ignore your partner if you must, and play your own game. When it comes to foursomes, there is a misnomer about USA players lacking the temperament, and generosity of spirit, to succeed. For some other reason, players from outside the gilded kingdom, are automatically granted these two traits, which therein give them an advantage in alternate-shot competition. In 2019, team USA won 5.5 of 8 foursomes points. If the ROW squad had merely halved those matches, they would have been 1.5 points closer to victory. Truth is, no one knows what makes a proper foursomes partnership. Is it the best way to identify the proper champion? No. Is it a magically-archaic, outdated anachronism, wreaking havoc on a modern world and its golf? 100 percent. For those reasons, it should always be a part of these matches. It represents the unknown.

Replace singles

Bold statement, I know. Remember, this is a team event, and the emphasis is on team play. I’m not suggesting scramble golf; that’s for the silly season. Probably would take these guys 6 hours per match, with the selection of whose shot, how to play it, where to place it, ad infinitum and nauseum. How about alternate-alternate shot, or sixsomes? Player A drives, player B approaches, player C putts for one team. On the next hole, they shift one slot, then again on the third hole. No? Consider quick-six, where each six holes is worth something, with the three segments determining the winner of the point. Adds a sense of urgency to one of the sessions. It sticks in my craw that sides can establish a proper lead in team play, only to see it vanish upon the abandonment of the essence of the competition.

Comeback kids

Speaking of singles, there were some freakishly-inexplicable comebacks on Sunday. Begin with Tony Finau against Hideki Matsuyama. 4 down on the 11th tee, the pride of Utah somehow won five of the next eight holes to square his match. Only a half point loss for the ROW, but Matsuyama had this one in the bag, and let his mates down, big time. Next would be Patrick Reed. What’s that you say? The guy who one five of his first six holes, with four birdies, against an outclassed Pan, was a comeback kid? Sure thing. You know why. It was a comeback from all the things that had gone wrong over the last fortnight. In truth, Reed deserved to do a Fortnite celebration dance, after his Sunday performance. The maligned Matt Kuchar fashioned a comeback of his own, against Louis Oosthuizen. Koooootch stood 3-down with nine to go, and strode to the 18th tee with a 1-up lead. Sure, he gassed a bogey there, to fall back into a tie, but controlling his own destiny for once, was a big step for the Georgian. As bitter as comebacks are for those who give up leads, they are equally-fulfilling for those who return from the dead.

The golf course

After any time at all in golf, folks talk about the Augusta Influence that drives golf course superintendents to desperation. Ignorant members demand that their courses look and play like The National does … for two weeks of the year. With luck, those members will demand that their courses look and play like Royal Melbourne, instead. No need to saturate fairways and putting surfaces with wasted water. No call to preserve a green hue unknown to Mother Nature. No need to avoid the natural bounce, the intuitive carom, the unpredictable roll, the unsettling roil caused by firm, uneven turf. Golf is infinitely more interesting when unpredictable. Its courses are why we play the game until the moment we depart, boots up, toward the next life. Stop humanizing it, for goodness sake!

Closing thoughts

I’m not looking forward to next year’s Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits, nor the 2021 Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow. I have no anticipation that Wisconsin in late September will be at all firm, just as I know that piedmont North Carolina will be equally wet and soft, in September of the following year. I’m hoping for a dry red in 2022, at Marco Simone outside Rome, just as I hope that the yet-to-be-selected site of the 2023 PrezCup matches will be something special. American golf is treelined, windless, blah, even when played on a faux-links like Whistling Straits.

I hope that future captains resist the temptation to select members of their little clubs, their inner circles. Give someone like Kevin Kisner or Kevin Na an experience on a national team. Your win-at-all-costs, keep-it-in-the-family approaches are simply not what the human experience need be, all the time. Imagine an aging Kisner, a septegenarian Na, recalling the time when he was a captain’s pick for a USA squadron. Not Fowler, nor Reed.

Give us prime-time golf from around the globe. Give us venues as magical as those seen on the Wonderful World of Golf, decades ago. These form the inspiration for generations of young golfers; they always have and always will. Knowing that golf will transport you to another continent, another language, another playing surface, is more than any other sport or game can offer. We are a fortunate lot.