Presidents Cup 2019: Tiger Woods can’t get fancy with his captain’s picks

Tiger Woods will have plenty of incredible talents to choose from with his Presidents Cup captain’s picks this week, but don’t expect any major surprises.

Two years ago, Tiger Woods acted as a captain’s assistant in the Presidents Cup at Liberty National. Steve Stricker led that American team to a dominating 19-11 victory, surprising almost nobody. And while I don’t want to take any credit away from the job that Stricker and his crew of assistants did that year, it would have been hard to mess up.

Stricker’s top four automatic qualifiers were Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth (remember him?), Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler. No. 5 Daniel Berger had just won the FedEx-St. Jude Classic for the second time in a row, and he took Spieth to a playoff at the Travelers. No. 6 was a guy named Brooks Koepka, then a one-time major champion who was on his way to setting the sport on fire. Kevin Kisner, Patrick Reed, Matt Kuchar and Kevin Chappell rounded out the top ten.

Stricker elected to use his captain’s picks on No. 11 Charley Hoffman, who was narrowly edged out by Chappell at the Dell Technologies Championship, and No. 15 Phil Mickelson. Lefty had fallen behind Brian Harman, Jason Dufner and Gary Woodland down the stretch, but his presence in the team room is legendary. Mickelson repaid that confidence by going 3-0-1 that week.

This year, the teams have been given four total captain’s picks, in order to allow Captains Woods and Els an opportunity to fill a more significant portion of their rosters with hot hands, and in turn, hopefully making the matches more competitive overall.

More from Pro Golf Now

• Golf Rumors: LIV set to sign Masters Champion in stunning deal
• Fantasy Golf: Grant Thornton Invitational DFS Player Selections
• Brutal return leaves Will Zalatoris looking towards 2024
• Stars You Know at World Champions Cup Starts Thursday at Concession
• Fantasy Golf: An Early Look at the 2024 Masters Tournament

And there are plenty of big names outside the top eight qualifiers, especially on the American side. Names like Rickie Fowler, Patrick Reed, Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson, and of course, Tiger Woods himself. While we certainly expect Tiger to choose himself to play this year’s Presidents Cup (and he hasn’t exactly been subtle about that in recent weeks), he has some very fair choices to make. Namely, does he go with tried and true guys like Spieth and Mickelson, who haven’t been playing very well lately, or does he go chalk with hot hands?

At the end of the day, he’ll have to make the tough call to some solid team guys and tell them that this just isn’t their year. If I’m in Tiger’s shoes, I’m going to give the three additional spots to Tony Finau (ninth in qualifying), Gary Woodland (10th, and the reigining U.S. Open champion), and Rickie Fowler (11th). If Brooks Koepka does have to withdraw due to injury, then the quietly-hot Patrick Reed (12th) should don the stars and stripes once more.

It would be a great story to give Mickelson an honorable mention in Koepka’s place to extend his streak of Cup teams made, but by his own admission, it wouldn’t be a pick earned on his recent play. Or to bring in both Spieth and Reed to see if they can reignite their chemistry from the 2016 Ryder Cup.

But those would be tremendous gambles, based on the idea that Team USA doesn’t really need its absolute best to beat the International team. And that would be short-sighted, as Ernie Els’s squad has plenty of talent throughout, even if it doesn’t appear to stand up to the Americans on paper. After all, that’s what so many of us thought heading into Paris for last year’s Ryder Cup, and we know how that turned out.

Don’t get fancy here, Tiger. Go with your A-team to Australia and bring home another W.