History and stats not on the side of Internationals at Presidents Cup

Can the International team upset the heavily-favored Americans this week at Royal Melbourne? Not if past results are any indication.

International team captain Ernie Els can’t help but develop a case of deja vu while scrolling through the group of players he’ll lead into the Presidents Cup on Wednesday.

The team reminds him of another group of unheralded and globetrotting golfers from 21 years ago who took on a powerful American team consisting of Tiger Woods, Mark O’Meara, David Duval and Davis Love III — the four highest-ranked players in the world at the time — and defeated them at Royal Melbourne.

Now Els and the International team will try to do the same thing as the 1998 team did, overcome vast odds against a superior American team. The Presidents Cup, now in his 13th edition, has been decisively one-sided throughout its history, with 1998 the only time the International team has won.

The American team — on paper, at least — might be the strongest ever assembled. It consists of 10 of the top-20 players in the Official World Rankings and has an average world ranking of 12th. The International team, meanwhile, has two players inside the top-20 and an average ranking of 40th. Such is the depth Captain Woods had to work with that when World No. 1 Brooks Koepka had to withdraw following knee surgery, he replaced him with World No. 22 Rickie Fowler, a higher ranking than all but three members of the International team. Nine International team players are ranked lower than the lowest-ranked American (Matt Kuchar at No. 24).

While the Americans are able to build team camaraderie by playing together on the PGA Tour all year, the Internationals come from places as diverse as Mexico, South Africa, Chile, South Korea, and host Australia. Some of them play mostly on the PGA Tour, others often play on the European or Korean Tours. They’ve combined for 27 PGA Tour victories with two majors; Woods alone has 82 wins and 15 majors, and the entire team has 155 career titles. The International team is also short on experience. Els will rely on seven rookies this week at Royal Melbourne and a team with an average age of 28. Rookies have won only 26 of 60 matches over the last three Presidents Cups.

But if Els and his team is going to do what few expect them to do and actually win the Cup, they’ll have to go back to the playbook they used in 1998. Els was a member of that team and vividly recalls what made that team special.

“That was a wonderful time. I still remember that very clearly,” he said at his press conference this week. “How the guys played. The team spirit we had that week. How they individually stood tall. A lot of players back then even, the world never really heard of them … these people stood up.”

“From that point of view, we talked about that. We’re doing this thing as a team. I’ve got a young team, as we did in ’98. And at the end of the day, it’s 18 holes of match-play. We’ve seen what can happen.”

The 1998 team had five players ranked outside the top-10 in the world; those players went a combined 14-5-1 that week. This year’s team — consisting of Marc Leishman, Hideki Matsuyama, Louis Oosthuizen, Adam Scott, Abraham Ancer, Haotong Li, C.T. Pan, Cameron Smith, Sungjae Im, Ben An, Adam Hadwin, and Joaquin Niemann — have to find a way to replicate that success if they want any hope of ending the American domination of the event.

The Presidents Cup is often considered the poor little brother of the Ryder Cup, a team competition without any of the passion and excitement that defines the U.S. battles against the Europeans. The Americans won the last Presidents Cup, at Liberty National in New Jersey, by eight points. The Internationals have been within three points of the Americans just once in the last seven tournaments.

But if there’s one thing favoring the Internationals this time around, it’s the possibility of fatigue among the Americans. Eleven of the twelve U.S. team members played in the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas on the weekend before flying 23 hours to Australia. They also a villain that will be sure to rile up the Australian fans in Patrick Reed, who incurred a two-stroke penalty last week for blatantly improving his lie.

And then there’s the reality of match play. As Els said, anything can happen when you pit pro golfers head-to-head for 18 holes. The out-powered International team will need all the help they can get if they want to avoid another American coronation.