Tiger Woods and Ernie Els named Presidents Cup Captains for 2019

Tiger Woods will lead his first American team in the 2019 Presidents Cup, facing off against Ernie Els of the International squad.

Tiger Woods and Ernie Els will be captains for the 2019 Presidents Cup. Word leaked about the appointments through MorningRead.com and the Associated Press.

Woods, naturally, will head up the U.S. squad, and Els will be in charge of the Internationals.

At the Arnold Palmer Invitational, the PGA Tour held a press conference that included PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan where the formal announcement was made.

At the top of the question list was whether either had given any thought to being playing captains.

“Yes, I have,” Woods said with a big smile. In other words, yes, he wants to.

“I think he’s going getting in position to maybe play,” Els said about Woods. But for himself he added, “No, I think we’re… I’m going to be captaining.”

Woods said the idea of being captain came after what he called a group text with Davis Love III, Fred Couples, Steve Stricker and Jim Furyk about who might be the next captain.

"“They said that you would probably be on the short list,” Woods explained. “And I didn’t really think about it in that way. But then after a little bit of thought I said, you know what, that sounds like something I really want to do. I called Jay up said, ‘Hey Jay, might you be interested in me possibly being the captain in 2019 Presidents Cup team?’ Silence.”"

Monahan was probably picking himself up off the floor.

“Then he said, ‘Yeah, I think that might, we might be able to work that out.’ So here I am,” Woods added.

Woods noted that he would like to be the playing captain, but there was one spot he didn’t want to be in.

“I would like to get to a point where I wouldn’t have to make that decision,” he explained. “I wouldn’t want to have the conversation and go, ‘Self.'”

Commissioner Monahan feels that this time around, with Woods and Els as captains, the Presidents Cup will be elevated to a new level.

"“I think it’s just going to take the game deeper and wider than it’s ever been and it’s going to continue on the progression of reaching all the markets throughout the world in a powerful way,” he explained. “And this goes back to, this is part of the wisdom that — I think Commissioner Finchem deserves great credit for in establishing this event when it was established, because this is the point in time where we all envisioned — we’re right where we thought we would be and now this is another opportunity to take the Cup and the game forward in significant ways on a global basis.”"

Can Tiger Woods or Ernie Els add some interest to a lopsided contest?

With two wildly popular players as captains, there is no doubt that interest will be high among fans, even for a traditionally one-sided competition.

Woods first participated in Presidents Cup in 1998 and participated in all matches through 2013. Els was member of all teams from 1996 through 2013. Both have played 40 matches, second only to Phil Mickelson, who has played on every team since 1994, and who has participated in 50 matches.

Els is the leading point-getter for the Internationals, winning 21 points.

Vijay Singh, Ernie Els and Adam Scott share the record for most appearances, eight times each. It is likely that Scott will take over that record in 2019.

Woods, with 24.5 points in his Presidents Cup career, is second to Mickelson, who has 32.5 points, the most of any U.S. team member.

Changes ahead for Woods, Els in 2019 Presidents Cup

The site for the 2019 Presidents Cup, Royal Melbourne’s championship course, is a composite course made up of 12 holes from the West course and six from the East. The combination has been used for many tournaments dating to the 1959 World Cup. The courses, independently, have consistently high ratings in the world rankings. The West course is currently 6^th in Golf Digest’s Top 100 courses in the Word. The East course is 58^th.

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Now, because it is anticipated that the PGA Tour calendar will be significantly different for 2019 compared to 2018, the timing of the captain’s picks is sure to be different than in past years. In the past, the top 10 players on the FedExCup points list have qualified for that year’s U.S. team, and the top 10 in world rankings have qualified for the International team. Today, it was announced that the top eight players on each team’s list will be determined at the end of the Tour Championship in 2019. Each captain will have four additional picks, and the date for those announcements will be determined later.

A significant change will be that each team is required to play each team member only once instead of twice before Sunday’s singles matches. Depending on the composition of the teams, this modification could improve the chances of the International team. The picks for the 2017 team were made two weeks before the Tour Championship. With the 2019 matches slated for Dec. 12-15, the timing will be well into the 2020 season of the PGA Tour.

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Presidents Cup began in 1994 with the U.S. team headed by Hale Irwin, who was a playing captain at age 49, and the Internationals led by David Graham of Australia, who was a non-playing captain. Nick Price has been the most recent captain for the Internationals, and Steve Stricker was the U.S. captain last year in a 19 to 11 victory.

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