Since being named captain for the first time six years ago, Nick Price has been busy doing everything he could to convince players on the International team it could win the Presidents Cup, writes GARY LEMKE.
Price, perceived worldwide as one of the game’s good guys, embraced the role of team captain. He’s sent text messages and emails, made personal phone calls and visits. He’s handed out hugs, hosted a duck hunt and done a bit of cajoling. Anything to create camaraderie. Price has embraced the captaincy and pulled out all the stops when it comes to creating a team atmosphere.
Now it’s time to find out if all that effort has worked. The 12th Presidents Cup matches begin Thursday at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, New Jersey, a Tom Kite-Bob Cupp design that features scenic views of New York Harbour and the Statue of Liberty.
‘There are eight countries represented and trying to team up as one,’ said Trevor Immelman, a two-time Presidents Cup competitor and now a broadcaster with Golf Channel. ‘They are trying to bring this into one melting pot this week. That is why Nick Price has used the last six years to rally these guys together.’
Price, a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, has watched the scores get closer with each Presidents Cup team he’s captained. The Americans won 18.5 to 15.5 at Ohio’s Muirfield Village in 2013, but the margin was 15.5 to 14.5 in South Korea in 2015. The International team’s only win came in 1998.
Price has invested hours into convincing his players that this could be the year it comes together to defeat a United States team that includes three of the season’s Major champions and the FedExCup winner.
‘These guys have all been excited for a while now,’ Price said. ‘The texts and the emails and the messages that have been going backwards and forwards for the last six, eight months, have been very rewarding to say the least because it’s piqued everybody’s interests.
‘Even though,’ he continued, ‘we’re a hodgepodge of a team from all around the world, we are all competitors and we like to compete and we don’t like to get beat.’
Along with Price, there is a heavy South African presence on the team. Ernie Els, who competed in eight Presidents Cup matches, assumed the role as non-playing assistant. The 12-man team includes Branden Grace, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel, three of the eight players who return from the 2015 team.
‘We are trying to get the 10 best players, or who are playing the best at the moment, out here and them pair them up together so that they are happy and compatible,’ Price said.
The competition begins on Thursday with five four-ball or alternate-shot matches. The pairings are: Schwartzel and Hideki Matsuyama vs PGA Tour Player of the Year Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler, Adam Scott and Jhonattan Vegas vs Dustin Johnson and Matt Kuchar, Open Championship winner Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed vs Si Woo Kim and Emiliano Grillo, Oosthuizen and Grace vs US Open champion Brooks Koepka and Daniel Berger, and Jason Day and Marc Leishman vs Phil Mickelson and Kevin Kisner.
Sitting out the matches on Thursday are Canadian Adam Hadwin and India’s Anirban Lahiri for the Internationals and Kevin Chappell and Charley Hoffman for the Americans.
The schedule on Friday calls for five four-ball matches. Those pairings will be announced Thursday afternoon. There will be two rounds Saturday, four foursome matches in the morning and four four-ball matches in the afternoon. The event concludes Sunday with 12 singles matches.
It was no surprise to see Grace and Oosthuizen paired together. The duo went 4-0 two years ago and took down some of the top American players. They beat the teams of Kuchar and Reed, Johnson and Spieth, Reed and Rickie Fowler, and long-hitting Bubba Watson and JB Holmes. Only one of those matches reached the 18th hole.
Grace said, ‘We play a very similar game in general, both hit it very similar distances. When the wind comes up, we play a similar wind game, as well, especially from where we grew up, and I think it helps that we’re good friends, as well.’
Oosthuizen said, ‘We like to play against each other, even though it’s just for $10 or $20. The two of us always give each other a hard time.’
Grace, 29, and Oosthuizen, 32, both played in the Presidents Cup in 2013 and 2015. Grace went 0-4-0 in his first competition, but was 5-0-0 in 2015. Oosthuizen was 4-0-1 in 2015 after going 1-3-1 in 2013.
Schwartzel, the 2011 Masters champion, will be paired with Japan’s Matsuyama the first day. Schwartzel, 33, is 6-7-1 in three Presidents Cups. He spent time with Matsuyama during the year and believes they can forge a winning team, despite a language barrier.
‘I mentioned to Nick that I think we would actually do really good together,’ Schwartzel said. ‘Because we both like to do our own thing. You get guys that like to be really high-fiving and be out there, but I like to do my own thing and Hideki the same. He just does his thing. I think that’s why we could potentially be a really good team.’
Missing from the active roster is Els, who played in eight Presidents Cup matches. He is tied with Vijay Singh for the most matches played (40) by an International competitor. His 20 victories are the most by an International, four more than Singh. He is certainly being groomed to become a captain.
Photo: Rob Carr/Getty Images
