Presidents Cup 2019: Automatic qualifiers set for Team USA

The Presidents Cup automatic qualifying period is over, and captain Tiger Woods has his first eight players for this December’s contest at Royal Melbourne.

The BMW Championship did more than trimming down the remaining FedEx Cup field to its final 30 players. It’s also given us the first eight automatic qualifiers for Team USA in the 2019 Presidents Cup.

Captain Tiger Woods also saw his season end earlier than he would have liked, but that gives him plenty of time to prepare for this December’s contest in Melbourne, Australia. This will be the 15-time major champion’s first time as an international team captain, and he couldn’t be looking at much better with the first two-thirds of his roster.

Nobody played their way into or out of the automatic qualifiers at the BMW Championship, but here’s how it all shook out for the record books.

The top qualifier is absolutely no surprise, as Brooks Koepka dominated the year-long points race, finishing with 8,310 qualifying points. Koepka is the top-ranked golfer on the planet, and he’s won three times in the last year, most notably repeating at the PGA Championship this past May at Bethpage Black.

He finished inside the top four at all four majors this year, and he’s proven his ability to show up with his best game on the biggest stages. This will be Koepka’s fourth national team appearance, and he’s also on a collision course with the Olympics next summer in Tokyo.

Coming in second, and fresh off a victory on Sunday at Medinah, is Justin Thomas. The former world No. 1 has bigger fish to fry in the immediate future, as he just overtook Koepka for the top spot in the TOUR Championship, and he’ll have the inside track at his second season title. With a clean bill of health and a well-rounded game, Thomas will be an integral part of Team USA at Royal Melbourne. This is his second Presidents Cup and third national team overall as a pro.

The third qualifier is Dustin Johnson, who is quickly becoming a member of the “old guard” on Team USA. He’ll be making his eighth international start as a pro, and while he checks a lot of the same on-course boxes that Koepka does, he may also be a guy who brings that levity to the team room that keeps people playing loose and happy.

In fourth place, the player who did the most to solidify his spot on the roster is Patrick Cantlay. One of the world’s most celebrated amateur golfers before turning pro in 2012, Cantlay has put the rocky start of his career firmly in his rear-view mirror, and has qualified for his first international contest as a pro.

He has represented the red, white and blue before, as a winning member of the 2011 Palmer Cup (the amateur version of the Presidents Cup, essentially), and enduring a narrow loss in the 2011 Walker Cup against Great Britain and Ireland. Cantlay also jumped from sixth to second in the FedEx Cup race with a strong runner-up finish behind Thomas at Medinah.

Xander Schauffele comes in with Cantlay as a fellow first-time member of Team USA, and another who could make up a strong core in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup contests for years to come. Schauffele hasn’t had the greatest run over the last month or two, but his talents are obvious to anybody who has had the privilege to watch him. When he’s on, he has the potential to challenge for the No. 1 spot in the world.

Webb Simpson was left off of Team USA in both the 2015 and 2017 Presidents Cup, as well as the winning 2016 Ryder Cup squad at Hazeltine. However, he made his return to international competition at Le Golf National last year, and he’ll enjoy a spot on Tiger’s team this winter, as well. He didn’t get back in the winner’s circle in 2019, but it wasn’t for lack of trying, with a trio of runner-up finishes among six total top tens. Another veteran voice, he’ll be a strong asset to the team.

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Matt Kuchar has had an eventful year, to say the least, but he’s come out strong on the other end. While he’s struggled to close the year with anything near the momentum he started with (two wins and two runners-up before May), he’s got plenty of time to get things right before December. I don’t love the way he’s been playing over the past several weeks, but everyone goes through tough stretches. In a team format, he should be more than serviceable, with the potential to carry several matches.

The 2016 Olympic bronze medalist broke a streak of eight straight national teams made ahead of last year’s Ryder Cup, so this should be a boost in spirits as well as his game.

The final automatic qualifier for Team USA in the 2019 Presidents Cup is probably the most targeted player on social media these days, Bryson DeChambeau. While I’ll leave it up to those between the ropes to determine if he’s making up adequate time between shots by power-walking, I’ll give credit where credit is due. DeChambeau has taken the brunt of the Twitter-verse’s vitriol and seems to not be too upset by it. He even made it a point to go talk to Brooks Koepka face-to-face when he felt slighted by his colleague’s slow play comments in the media.

Bryson last won on the PGA TOUR at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open back in November, but he nearly added a second title at the 3M Open over the Fourth of July weekend. Had he not been foiled by Matthew Wolff’s stunning final-hole eagle, things would be even better. As it stands, DeChambeau still has some inconsistencies in his game, but he should take the experience of making the Ryder Cup last year and apply it to the future, as any good scientist would.

While those eight players will be guaranteed spots in the Presidents Cup this winter, Captain Woods also has four more selections to make before the team is complete. We all know he has talked about being a playing captain, but will he actually name himself to the team considering how so much of his season has been defined by long layoffs and rust in the game?

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Will he keep Phil Mickelson’s two-decade streak of national team appearances alive? Will Patrick Reed or Jordan Spieth have a chance to reignite their chemistry? What of U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland or fan favorite Rickie Fowler? There are plenty of questions left to answer before the Presidents Cup contest begins, but we’ve got a much clearer picture of where we’re headed now.

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