Tiger Woods and Ernie Els have made their choices! Both chose the best four players they think could take on the opposing team. As a reminder, I thought Tiger would choose himself, Gary Woodland, Tony Finau and Rickie Fowler and Ernie would choose Sungjae Im, Jason Day, Corey Connors and Byeong-hun An or Joaquin Niemann. I got three out of four on both; let’s see who they chose:
Tiger Woods’ Captain’s Picks:
- Tony Finau
- Patrick Reed
- Gary Woodland
- Tiger Woods
Ernie Els’ Captain’s Picks:
- Sungjae Im
- Adam Hadwin
- Joaquin Neimann
- Jason Day
The two surprises here were Patrick Reed and Adam Hadwin. Patrick Reed was significantly less of a curve ball, given that he has a phenomenal match play history in these team events and has been playing elite golf recently. On the other hand, Rickie has not played since the Playoffs, which does not necessarily show the initiative I think Tiger was looking for. Of course Rickie had a good excuse; getting married. It’ll be interesting to see who Reed is paired with, since there’s no Jordan and the Reed/Woods combination didn’t fare so well at the Ryder Cup.
I cannot understand why Els chose Hadwin, but I’ll try to explain it. As I mentioned before, there are multiple factors that go into a captain’s pick. You want someone with experience, great recent performances and commercial appeal. Hadwin was chosen because he’s a Canadian and they wanted to reach the Canadian audience. You’re probably thinking, like I am, why did he not choose Corey Conners, who had a significantly better 2019 than Hadwin. I think Els valued Hadwin’s experience over Conners’ performance. Hadwin has played in a Presidents Cup before and despite a poor record of 0-3-0, he’s a more well-known name. Plus, the International team is already young; Abraham Ancer, Haotong Li, CT Pan and Cameron Smith all have never played in a Presidents Cup before. Els had already chosen Im and Niemann as two of his picks, both of whom deserved the pick over Conners, which brought the International Rookie total up to 6 out of 12 already. If Els had picked Conners, the scales would be extremely tipped. I feel bad for Conners, but I understand Els’ rationale, especially because Conners’ shaky putting is a liability in alternate shot. The US has 5 rookies (Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Bryson DeChambeau, Gary Woodland and Tony Finau) but reading that list it feels difficult to really call them rookies, especially because Finau and Dechambeau have played in the Ryder Cup, and Cantlay and DeChambeau both had notable match play success in college.
We will be back before the tournament begins to give our ideal match ups, predictions, a preview of Royal Melbourne, and more.
