The First Look: Presidents Cup

The Presidents Cup heads to the venerable Medinah Country Club with a hungry group of Internationals looking to defeat the American side for the first time on home soil, led by the Tour’s top player, Scottie Scheffler.

This marks the 16th playing of the Presidents Cup and another notable event hosted at Medinah No. 3. It hosted the Ryder Cup in 2012, won by Europe after a wild final-day comeback, two PGA Championships (both won by Tiger Woods) and three U.S. Opens.

Here’s everything you need to know about this year’s Presidents Cup.

U.S. TEAM: Scottie Scheffler (third Presidents Cup), Cameron Young (second), Wyndham Clark (second), Sam Burns (third), Russell Henley (second), Collin Morikawa (third)

Picks: Chris Gotterup (rookie), Xander Schauffele (fourth), Justin Thomas (fourth), Jacob Bridgeman (rookie), Patrick Cantlay (fourth), Jackson Koivun (rookie)

Captain: Brandt Snedeker

INTERNATIONAL TEAM: Si Woo Kim (fourth Presidents Cup), Ryan Fox (rookie), Hideki Matsuyama (seventh), Min Woo Lee (second), Tom Kim (third), Adam Scott (12th)

Picks: Corey Conners (third), Nico Echavarria (rookie), Sungjae Im (fourth), Ryo Hisatsune (rookie), Nick Taylor (rookie), Christiaan Bezuidenhout (third)

Captain: Geoff Ogilvy

COURSE: Medinah Country Club (Course No. 3), par 70, 7,548 yards. There have been plenty of changes to Medinah since the PGA Tour was last there for the 2019 BMW Championship – won by Justin Thomas after firing a course-record 61. The Australian-based design team of Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Cocking and Ashley Mead (known by their initials OCM) took the reins of a total and complete transformation of No. 3 in 2022-23, with Ogilvy of course now returning as International captain for this year’s Presidents Cup. In sum, OCM eliminated two redundant par 3s and the short par-4 15th and introduced three entirely new holes. The new No. 3 keeps the flow of the first six holes, then alters things entirely. There are now 117 bunkers (up from 70) and the “total sand area” doubled to 204,000 square feet. The average green size grew by more than 40% – it is, essentially, a much larger ballpark.

Learn more about the changes to Medinah here.

Historical Presidents Cup record

STORYLINES: The Presidents Cup features four days of competition with five matches on both Thursday and Friday, eight matches on Saturday (split in the morning and afternoon) and 12 singles matches on Sunday. … As captain of the American side, Brandt Snedeker chose the format order: Day 1 will have five Four-ball matches, Day 2 will have five Foursomes matches, Day 3 will have four Foursomes and four Four-ball matches, and Day 4 will have 12 Singles matches. … The U.S. Team is looking to win the Presidents Cup for the 11th time in a row. … Scottie Scheffler returns to action after capturing the Tour Championship and winning the FedExCup for the second time. No surprise, he is the top-ranked American while Si Woo Kim is the International's top-ranked player. … Jacob Bridgeman heads into the Presidents Cup riding high after winning the Biltmore Championship Asheville on Sunday for his second win of the year. … Twenty-one-year-old Jackson Koivun is one of the youngest participants in Presidents Cup history. He defeated Scottie Scheffler at the 3M Open, and it took him just five starts on Tour to earn a spot in the FedExCup Playoffs. Koivun is one of three players on the U.S. team who were not born the last time the Internationals won the Presidents Cup in 1998. … A pair of second-time Presidents Cup participants in Cameron Young and Wyndham Clark will look to build off their multi-win campaigns in 2026 to be called upon as stars of the squad. Young won The Players Championship while Clark won three times, including his second U.S. Open. … Adam Scott’s 12th Presidents Cup appearance ties him with Phil Mickelson for the most all-time, but he has, however, never been on a winning team. … At 38, Nick Taylor is making his Presidents Cup debut after not making the squad in his native Canada in 2024. Taylor was one of just three golfers – Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler and Keegan Bradley were the others – to win at least once in all of 2023, 2024 and 2025. … Speaking of veteran rookies, Ryan Fox is also making his Presidents Cup debut after winning The Open Championship this summer. His claret jug victory was one of three Tour titles in the last 17 months for the native of New Zealand. … The United States has dominated the Presidents Cup competition with an overall record of 13-1-1. They have won the last 10 editions and, of course, have never lost on home soil. … Sitting U.S. President Donald Trump is the honorary chairman of the Presidents Cup, as is tradition for the host country’s leader. He was also the chairman in 2017 at Liberty National and presented the cup to the winning U.S. team.

LAST TIME: It was a wild start to the 2024 edition of the Presidents Cup in Royal Montreal as the American side swept the opening session and the Internationals bounced back to sweep the Friday session to leave things even heading into the weekend. The Americans turned it up on Saturday, winning both sessions 3-1, however, and pulled away in Singles, cruising to an 18.5-11.5 victory – their largest margin away from home. Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa and Patrick Cantlay all earned four points for the U.S. and led the way. Six Internationals all recorded two points apiece. Keegan Bradley clinched the cup when he defeated Si Woo Kim in their singles match, 1 up.

How to follow (all times ET)

Television:

• Thursday: 12:30-7 p.m. (Golf Channel)
• Friday: 2-7 p.m. (Golf Channel)
• Saturday: 8-9 a.m. (Golf Channel); 9 a.m.-7 p.m. (NBC)
• Sunday: noon-6 p.m. (NBC)

PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and free at PGATOUR.com/liveaudio:

• Thursday: 1-7 p.m.
• Friday: 2-7 p.m.
• Saturday: 10 a.m.-7 p.m.
• Sunday: noon-6 p.m.