The Presidents Cup: A Presidential Performance

Kaye Kessler

In case you’re still glazed over from gridiron heroics of late, they just wrung out a Presidents Cup like no others. One that turned the course Jack Nicklaus built in Dublin, Ohio, into Lake Muirfield, but also turned an embryonic 10-year-old golf tournament into an impressive event that now stands proudly alongside the time-honored Ryder Cup.

The validation of this friendly golfing warfare had as much to do with the large numbers of spectators who withstood four days of stop-and-go torrential rains as it did with a tense triumph by the heavily favored U.S. team over an International team with seven rookies among its 12 competitors.

Certainly not to be overlooked was astounding golf by both teams as the top 12 U.S. Tour players held off a tenacious team of International players from everywhere but Europe for an 18 ½-15 ½ triumph that had more stop and go shenanigans dawn to dusk for four days than a 1930 flivver with dirty spark plugs.

What set this apart as the best-ever Presidents Cup is that record crowds upwards of 35,000 each of the four days were as undaunted by the incessant downpours as the players who touched off the steadiest birdie barrage in the tournaments history. Deluges every day forced the staff at the home of the Memorial tournament to squeegee the greens and bail out the bunkers
 
Yes, the golf was impressive. Tiger Woods, aching back and all, nailed the decisive point on a soggy Sunday when the Internationals won seven of the 12 singles matches to make it close. Veteran U.S. playmates Philly Mick and Steve Stricker lone U.S. rookie Jordan Spieth and others spit out birdies like pumpkin seeds as did Internationals like Ernie Els , Adam Scott, Jason Day and Hideki Matsuyama. But they had to come back into the torrents after every delay. The drowning spectators who didn’t have to come back did so in torrents as unrelenting as the heavens above.

Yep, it was the worst of Presidents Cups and yet the best of Presidents Cups. And with the 2015 version to be contested on another Nicklaus layout—the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club in Incheon, South Korea—the excitement should rain down again.

 

Colorado AvidGolfer is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it. It publishes eight issues annually and proudly delivers daily content via www.coloradoavidgolfer.com.