Brandt Snedeker picking Justin Thomas for the U.S. Presidents Cup team is not a big surprise, but picking Jackson Koivun is a bigger risk. Geoff Ogilvy choosing Corey Conners for the International squad doesn’t raise an eyebrow the way that Christiaan Bezuidenhout does.
However, taken together, both teams in this 2026 edition of the Presidents Cup at famed Medinah Country Club in suburban Chicago have a good mix of veterans and newbies, exactly what they should have for this or any team contest.
The first half of the U.S. team, you already know well, as it includes brand names Scottie Scheffler, Cameron Young, Wyndham Clark, Sam Burns, Russell Henley, and Collin Morikawa. They are all fairly dependable performers, with three of the six having won majors and Young capturing the unofficial fifth major at The Players.
Importantly, the U.S. squad has good putters. Perhaps the exception here would be Scheffler, whose putting prowess sometimes comes and goes. His ball-striking doesn’t. And his putting stat, which people fuss over it, shows he’s second in that category (putts per hole) on the PGA Tour.
Some of Snedeker's picks are also no surprise: Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay, for instance. These two became good friends after Fred Couples made them partners in 2019 for the Presidents Cup in Australia. Now, nobody wants to separate them because they are so dependable. You need points? Call on these two.
But they may also be needed to bring the newer team members like Jacob Bridgeman and Jackson Koivun into the fold. Their low-key personalities will be a calming influence for the new guys who might have a case of Presidents Cup jitters.
However, Chris Gotterup does not strike anyone as a player who needs to be coddled. He seems to be one of those guys that you point to the first tee and just say GO! Then BLAM! His golf engine is on and supercharged. He’s already won three times this year, as many tournaments as Scheffler. Gotterup is the kind of prolific winner who can probably contend for Player of the Year in the near future.
“Getting friendly with the guys that I haven't been friendly with in the past has been a huge part of it for me,” Gotterup said. “I'm excited to get in the team room, and I'm sure make fun of them, make fun of me. It will be a good time.”
Still, you can’t tell about nerves. Scheffler said that on the first tee of his first Ryder Cup, he was so nervous he couldn't feel his arms.
The U.S. should also have a Riviera rule, which would have included Bridgeman this year. The rule should be that anyone who wins at Riviera should be considered for whichever team event is being played that season. And Bridgeman, with his victory there, certainly solidified his place on the PGA Tour. Importantly, for team play, he’s third in the putting stats behind Clark and Scheffler. As the U.S. teams have discovered in the Ryder Cup, there’s no substitute for good-to-great putting.
Maybe it should not have been a surprise that Jackson Koivun won a tournament in his third outing, but it was. That’s the reason, according to Snedeker, he picked Koivun. What really impressed Snedeker was that Koivun had Scheffler chasing from behind and didn’t fold as the world No. 1 advanced.
“The best advice I've gotten from every captain I've talked to is to trust your gut,” Snedeker said. And that’s what he did with Koivun and Bridgeman.
Justin Thomas is about as rah-rah a teammate as can be found, and if the team needs some enthusiasm, JT is all about the red, white, and blue. He is also flexible in terms of being able to pair up with a lot of different players, so he will be a great ace in the hole for just about anyone. That’s hard to find.
The International squad also has a solid base of those who qualified in Si Woo Kim, Ryan Fox, Hideki Matsuyama, Min Woo Lee, Tom Kim, and Adam Scott, a group that also includes three major winners and another who's won The Players. Kim is a past Players champion, as is Adam Scott, on a course that will make you nervous on a Tuesday, never mind on a Sunday. Lee has game that has traveled to every continent but Antarctica. It will take a lot to shake them up.
The International picks by captain Geoff Ogilvy are Corey Conners (Canada), Nick Taylor (Canada), Nico Echavarria (Colombia), Sungjae Im (South Korea), Ryo Hisatsune (Japan), and Christiaan Bezuidenhout (South Africa).
The two Kims played in the last Presidents Cup as partners, and while players are never a lock to repeat their partnerships, this one will get a good look from Ogilvy. They were a blast to watch if that counts for anything.
If the International team is smart, they will do what Europe does in the Ryder Cup and pair the Japanese players, unless there is some contentiousness that we don’t know exists. They should do the same with the Canadians. It’s a cultural thing that they might be able to leverage the same way that Europe pairs two Irish players, two Spaniards, two Englishmen; you get the picture. There’s a comfort level there that may be worth a point or two.
We don’t quite have those differences in the U.S., but it wouldn’t make sense to put a New York City native with someone from San Diego. Two completely different mindsets. One is bouncing off walls and go, go, go, and the other one is sitting in a chair with his feet up, eyes closed, relaxing. They would drive each other nuts.
Bezuidenhout, this time around, is the only South African on a team that has in the past been packed with South African talent. Ogilvy said picking Bezuidenhout had nothing to do with his country. In fact, he looked almost shocked at the question.
“We don't think about that at all,” Ogilvy said. “He's finished really solid in a lot of tournaments, and his strokes gained and all his skill sets when you measure him up against all of the other players, he was well inside our top 12.”
Ogilvy cited Bezuidenhout’s consistency as a player.
“His record in the Presidents Cup is really strong. He's a fantastic putter and a fantastic iron player,’ he added. “It's just probably an aberration that there's only one, Bez, one South African on this team.”
Now, the real advantage for the Internationals, their 13th man, is that Ogilvy was involved in a redesign of Medinah, so it will be interesting to see if that inside information provides the edge that the Internationals need to secure a long overdue victory.
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