It won’t be the highest-rated Alabama soccer team playing Akron at home, but the American personalities will be the favorites to defeat the international for the ninth consecutive time in the Presidents Cup in two weeks.
USA team captain Davis Love III He filled out Wednesday’s remaining player roster with six of the top 26 players in the golf world’s rankings: Colin MorikawaAnd the Jordan SpiethAnd the Billy HorschelAnd the Cameron YoungAnd the Max Homa And the Kevin Kissner.
They will join the number 1 golfer in the world Scotty SchefflerAnd the Patrick CantlayAnd the Xander ShaveliAnd the Justin ThomasAnd the Sam Burns And the Tony Vino In the US team.
It will be the youngest US team in President’s Cup history, with an average age of 29.6 years. The Presidents Cup is scheduled for September 22-25 at the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Although a stacked US team would be the frontrunner, Love said they would have to play well under pressure.
“It will still be that stadium, that first shirt, the American flags and ‘Go USA’,” Love said. “This is their 12-player team that has never played together before. They want to win for this team. I don’t think we have to do a lot of messaging or motivation. Sure, you don’t want to be on a losing team at all.”
The highest-ranked players on the international team are Japanese Hideki Matsuyama And South Korea Songjae Im, which are 16 and 18, respectively. Two of the stars awaited for the international team, Australia Cameron Smith and Chile Joaquin Niemannineligible to join the team after defecting to LIV Golf Course.
“We fully understand the mountain ahead: It is probably the best American team ever assembled if you look at them on paper with their achievements and what their world rankings are,” the international team captain Trevor Immelman Tuesday said.
The average world ranking for the US team is 11.8; The international team is 48.8. Team USA includes five of the world’s top 10 players and 11 of the top 20 players. The international team has no top 10 players and two top 20 players.
“Trevor is going to have a team that has a chip on its shoulders, that’s excited and wants to prove that they can still compete,” Love said. “We have to be careful. Surely, these guys are not going to take her lying down.”
Love basically followed the scenario in making his captain’s choices, after the loss Will Zlatoriswho finished seventh in the Presidents Cup standings, due to a back injury that caused him to miss the final round of the season. Spieth, Morikawa, Homa, Horschel and Young took eighth to twelfth place in the standings, while Kesner, a veteran and match-playing specialist, took fifteenth.
Tom Hogg And the JT Boston They were ahead of Kissner in the Presidents Cup standings, but were not selected for the team.
Kessner, 38, won the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play in 2019 and was runner-up in 2018 and this season, when he lost to Scheffler in the finals. Kesner went 2-0-2 and earned three points in his only previous appearance in the Presidents Cup, at Liberty National Golf Club in New Jersey in 2017. He is considered one of the best rackets in the world and finished seventh in the 2017 PGA Championship held in Quail Hollow.
Schaeffler, Morikawa, Burns, Hurschel, Young and Homa are the first timers for the Presidents Cup. Schaeffler and Morikawa competed in the American team that crushed Europe 19-9 in the 2021 Ryder Cup at Wesling Straits.
While the United States has traditionally struggled in the Ryder Cup, they have won 11 of the past 13 Presidents Cups, and only lost once, 20 x 11 in Melbourne, Australia, in 1998. Teams tied 17-17 in George, South Africa, in 2003.
behind the captain tiger woodThe US team won 16-14 in Melbourne in the last Presidents Cup in 2019.
“What we do in the Presidents Cup better than the Ryder Cup is we don’t have the fear of losing or the doubt in our heads,” Loew said. “We went in with a lot of confidence and we have to keep that momentum going. It was a little closer than we wanted the last time in Australia.”
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