Brendon Todd: Why didn’t Tiger Woods pick him for the Presidents Cup?

Brendon Todd has won two straight PGA TOUR events and is in the hunt for a third…so why didn’t Tiger Woods pick him for the Presidents Cup team?

When Tiger Woods picked Rickie Fowler for the Presidents Cup team to replace the injured Brooks Koepka, a lot of people wondered why Woods didn’t go with Brendon Todd, who has won two tournaments in a row and is working his way up the leaderboard at the RSM Classic.

Todd won the new opposite field event, the Bermuda Championship, played on the Port Royal Golf Course, designed by Robert Trent Jones. It was the same week as the WGC-HSBC China tournament.

He followed that up with a victory at the Mayakoba Golf Classic, regular PGA Tour event, on a course designed by Greg Norman.

What the locations mean is the courses where Todd won weren’t pushovers.

However, the Bermuda Championship is for those who do not qualify for the WGC-HSBC Championship in China, where the top 78 players in the world competed. Rory McIlroy was the winner in that limited field event.

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So, while winning in Bermuda was a great career boost and confidence builder for Todd, it wasn’t the same kind of victory as that of Rory McIlroy at the HSBC. McIlroy beat a stronger field.

Todd’s Mayakoba victory, however, was against those PGA Tour players who chose to enter and included several high-profile, highly ranked names like Billy Horschel, Matt Kuchar, Cameron Champ, and Patrick Rodgers. But for Tiger Woods, that may not be enough of a body of work to prove pick-worthy.

Fowler’s PGA Tour victories, five in all, have come over a ten-year career in events that typically have very strong fields. He answers the question “Who’d you beat?” in a positive way. He has won tournaments where he has played better than anybody in the world such as his victory at The Players.

Todd, on the other hand, had just one PGA Tour victory before his recent duo, and that was in 2014 at the HP Byron Nelson.He wasn’t just winless since then, he was off the PGA Tour for a couple of seasons due to poor play. Before his Bermuda victory, he missed four cuts in a row and then was 28^th in Houston.

Fowler has been high in the world rankings for several seasons and at one time was No. 4. He’s currently 19^th. Brendon Todd is currently 83^rd in the world.      

Woods had to be looking for a player who has experience in many high-pressure situations, and Fowler has played and contended in many tournaments and delivered victories. In addition to his win at The Players, Fowler has played on four Ryder Cup teams and three Presidents Cup teams in the past.

“Rickie loves the stage. A lot like a Phil Mickelson,” Davis Love III said at the RSM Classic when asked about the Woods’ pick. “There’s some guys that like to walk out on the final green and make that putt. They want the ball with no time on the clock, and Rickie’s that guy.”

Tiger Woods wants to win, and to do that, he mostly likely picked the player he thought could be counted on to deliver his best, or whatever his best is that week, which is all a captain can ask.  Fowler has solid, proven experience in delivering under stress, and Todd is an unknown under those kinds of conditions.

With Todd, though he might be playing well right now, his body of work couldn’t have given Woods the feeling that he could be absolutely counted to get the job done. Fowler has already shown that he can. Fowler has proven experience in delivering under stress, and Todd is an unknown in those kinds of conditions.

And that’s most likely why Tiger Woods picked Rickie Fowler over Brendon Todd for the Presidents Cup.