Presidents Cup: Why contest is getting tougher for International team ‘tired of losing’ against Team USA

Former major champion Rich Beem reflects on another dominant victory for Team USA in the Presidents Cup, what went wrong for the International Team on home soil and how the United States can take positives from their success into next year’s Ryder Cup…

The Presidents Cup is getting more competitive, there’s no doubt about that, and I think that the Internationals are certainly starting to build their own identity. They certainly provided plenty of excitement this week!

America got off to an unbelievable start on Thursday, winning 5-0, where all of a sudden we were all thinking ‘oh my gosh, this could be over already’. The Internationals then came back with their clean sweep of the USA side, which nobody saw coming.

I think Mike Weir lost it on Saturday by not mixing up some of his pairings going into the afternoon foursomes. I think that was a mistake and I think he’ll reflect upon that, but they clearly had a game plan going into it.

Putting Adam Scott out there for the fourth straight match on Saturday afternoon, at the age of 44, was the wrong decision. I mean he had to have been drained and even Scott said himself that night that he was tired.

Then you look at where Weir put him out in the singles – he was down in one of the bottom groups. I would have thought that a fresh Scott – had he not played on Saturday afternoon – might have been in the top three matches and I think that’s where you needed him.

The International side has got all kinds of game, but when you have as much depth as the United States side, it’s a massive difference. Anybody can beat anybody on one given day, but if you stretch it out to four different days, that’s a different thing.

Time to change the Presidents Cup?

I can promise you that the Internationals are tired of losing. Until the Internationals do get that next win, it’s going to be tougher and tougher for them to pull it off.

The longer you go without winning, the harder it is to win. We’ve heard that in the individual game and something’s got to change here but, right now, nothing on the horizon suggests that it is.

They’ve got to figure out whether it’s the venue, whether it’s the point system, or something else that’s got to change a little bit, because the Americans are just going to continue to churn out young, great players.

Why not switch it back to three days, to mimic the Ryder Cup? That way, if you have guys that aren’t playing that great, you can hide them a little bit.

You also then have one extra day of rest if those players want to play the week before, like Adam Scott, Byeong Hun An and Si Woo Kim did at the BMW PGA Championship.

There’s lots of different ways of looking at it, but right now I think America are just really strong and they know that they’re that strong versus the Internationals. They’re not afraid of them, but we still have our fear of the Europeans.

Ryder Cup next for Team USA?

I think we’re going to see a lot of the same players that played this week for Team USA at Bethpage Black next September, although one will likely not be as he will be the captain.

Jim Furyk learned plenty from his 2018 Ryder Cup experience and brought it to them this time around. Whatever they learned this year and whatever Furyk did in the locker room, I think that Keegan Bradley is going take a lot of that with him into the Ryder Cup.

It may be a lot of the same characters and individuals, but you have to remember we left home Justin Thomas and we left home Jordan Spieth for the first time in a long time, so there’s still plenty of depth there at our disposal.

The depth we have is going to be significant going against the Europeans but, let’s face it, the crowds and the golf course are going to be the difference in New York. It’s going to be an insane atmosphere.

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