Presidents Cup 2007

CanWest News Service

Monday, August 13, 2007

Canada’s Mike Weir was named Monday as one of two captain’s picks for the International team for next month’s Presidents Cup in Montreal.

International captain Gary Player also named Australia’s Nick O’Hern to the team, which pits the top International golfers against the top players from the United States.

“I’ve always valued the Presidents Cup and enjoyed playing the last three. It’s just such a great competition and being in Canada I wanted to play badly,” Weir said Monday during a conference call.

Weir has struggled of late, having missed the cut at last weekend’s PGA Championship. He withdrew from the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational the week before as a result of a muscle pull in his neck, and he tied for 34th at the Canadian Open three weeks ago.

“I felt like sometimes I was trying too hard,” said Weir, who is 84th on the PGA Tour money list this season with $927,372 US in earnings. “Now that Gary has made me a selection, hopefully I can relax a little more and play some really good golf leading into the Presidents Cup.”

The first 10 players on each team were based on world standings following play on Sunday.

Leading the U.S. will be Tiger Woods, Jim Furyk and Phil Mickelson. United States captain Jack Nicklaus selected Lucas Glover and Hunter Mahan on Monday to round out his team.

Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Geoff Ogilvy will lead the International team.

The U.S. holds a 4-1-1 all-time record in the matches. This year’s matches will be held Sept. 27-30 at The Royal Montreal Golf Club. U.S. Captain.

Calgary’s Stephen Ames made a strong bid to be named to the International team, including a 12th place finish in last weekend’s PGA Championship. He was among the leaders throughout the weekend, but shot a six-over-par 76 on Sunday to slip from the top-three into 12th spot.

Ames is 54th on the money list with $1,184,339 in paycheques.

“It was very, very close, actually,” said Player. “He (Ames) played so well in the PGA, the way we worked it out, he had to finish in the top four, which I actually thought he’d do the way he was playing. If he had finished fourth solo, he would have finished in top-10 (and earned an automatic team spot). Unfortunately he didn’t have a very good round.

“But obviously everybody was on my mind. It’s a very difficult thing to select a team.”

Ames had been looking forward to the possibility playing on Canadian soil.

“I’m truly disappointed that I was so close to the honour of playing for the International Team and that it didn’t quite happen for me this time around,” he said.

“As a proud Canadian, I was excited about the idea of playing in the Presidents Cup especially given that it is being played in Canada for the first time. I certainly feel that I have played well enough over a sustained period of time to warrant selection, but I also know how many talented players there are to choose from on the International side.”
© CanWest News Service 2007

Team captains scout Presidents Cup site, where world’s best will square off in fall showcase
RANDY PHILLIPS, The Gazette
Published: Tuesday, June 05, 2007

International team captain Gary Player said the first name he looks for in the ranking of players eligible for the Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal is Canada’s Mike Weir.
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Jun. 4, 2007
By Abbey Mastracco
From PGATOUR.com Staff

The International Presidents Cup rankings have shifted this week after K.J. Choi’s win at the Memorial Tournament Presented by Morgan Stanley. After being ranked No. 12 last week, Choi is now up to No. 8 in the Presidents Cup standings.

Choi jumped 36 spots in the FedExCup standings into eighth place as well, plus moved up 15 spots to No. 17 in the Official World Golf Ranking.
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From MikeWeir.com

MONTREAL, Que.–At a press conference at The Royal Montreal Golf Club attended by Presidents Cup Captains Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player, the PGA Tour unveiled a cross-Canada tour of The Presidents Cup Trophy beginning June 11th in Victoria, BC. The fifteen week tour conducted by the Canadian Professional Golf Tour will stop at every tournament on the Canadian Tour this summer visiting communities across the country to celebrate The Presidents Cup competition at The Royal Montreal Golf Club, September 27 to 30.
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MONTREAL (CP) - Canadians Mike Weir and Stephen Ames will have to play their way onto the International team at this year’s Presidents Cup golf tournament.

The event will be held in Canada for the first time this fall.

International captain Gary Player told a news conference today that Ames and Weir can forget about being sentimental choices for the team.
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LORNE RUBENSTEIN, From the Globe and Mail

ÎLE-BIZARD, QUE. — The Presidents Cup is more than three months away, but things are already humming here at the Royal Montreal Golf Club, which will play host to the biennial competition between International and U.S. teams of 12 players. The field will have 24 of the world’s top players, including Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh.
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By KEN FIDLIN — Toronto Sun

It’s down to crunch time for Mike Weir.
Weir’s roller-coaster season on the PGA Tour has left him sitting just outside the cut line for the prestigious Tour Championship, a tournament Weir won five years ago.

Once again yesterday, Weir failed to fire in the final round at the Funai Classic in Orlando, shooting a leisurely round of 72 while all around him players on the leaderboard were going low. Winner Joe Durant jumped from 66th spot into the Top 30 with his winner’s share of $828,000 US, bringing his season total to nearly $2.1 million.
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From The Globe & Mail LORNE RUBENSTEIN

It’s been proposed that the main reason the United States has won only one of the past six Ryder Cups is that its players don’t unite as a team. In the two most recent competitions, the Americans lost by nine points in 2004, and by the same enormous margin in the event that concluded Sunday at The K Club in Straffan, Ireland.

But maybe there’s another reason for the dismal U.S. performances in recent Ryder Cups. It comes down to three words.

The Presidents Cup.

The PGA Tour was the main force behind the Presidents Cup, which started in 1994 so that golfers not eligible for the Ryder Cup could compete biennially against a U.S. team. Elite golfers such as Vijay Singh, Ernie Els, Michael Campbell and Mike Weir play against Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and other U.S. players who qualify in years when the Ryder Cup isn’t on.
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From The Toronto Star
Sep. 22, 2006. 06:36 AM
DAVE PERKINS

STRAFFAN, Ireland—The Ryder Cup, which began this morning and not a moment too soon — weather permitting, of course — may well live up to its hype as the greatest event in golf. It often, even usually, does. But it still could learn a few things from the Presidents Cup.

Most athletic competitions, the better team wins. Or at least that’s the way to bet. But the Ryder Cup doesn’t always work out that way; in effect, the format favours the weaker team. By letting each captain sit out four players at a time, a smart man at the helm — and so far this week that’s clearly Tom Lehman — can sidestep an opposition’s superior depth.

That’s why the Europeans, in four of the past five RCs, have upset (if that’s the word) the more heavily star-loaded U.S. teams and it’s why, this time, a deeper European team could well lose as the favourite, although that’s a shrinking role, with the betting line moving more toward the U.S. in the past 36 hours.

Letting them all play is one of three reasons the PC has a superior format to the Ryder. None of this business of a guy striving for two years to make a team and then getting told to go sit out once the games begin. Go tell Luke Donald and Paul McGinley and Chad Campbell, among those on the bench this morning, that this is the best format.
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From Golf Digest
See how you match up in these 10 match-play situations

By Jack Nicklaus, Golf Digest Playing Editor, with Guy Yocom, Golf Digest, September 2004

As a captain of two Ryder Cup teams and a player on six others, I’ve learned from hard and happy experience some of the finer points of match-play strategy. Team play is fascinating on two distinct levels. The captain is charged with formulating two-man teams in the foursomes (alternate-shot) and four-balls (best-ball) competitions, and sending out players in just the right order in the singles matches. The challenge is an art as much as a science, and the captain relies on intuition, input from the team and observation of his players.

Then there is the tactical side, which rests mostly with the players during the course of the matches. Who hits first in the foursomes matches? Who putts first? Do you let your partner go for a dangerous par 5 in two or insist that he lay up? Which putts do you concede, and which partner concedes them? These are questions no captain or player has mastered completely and never will, because every match, every player and every situation is a bit different.

The following quiz reflects the subjective nature of team play, which I’ll encounter again next year when I captain my third Presidents Cup team. Some of the answers are hard and fast, others are arbitrary. If you answer more than half of them correctly—and there are a couple you won’t miss even if you disagree with me—you might make a good captain. Or at least a heckuva partner in your next weekend match.

1. One player has a 20-foot putt for birdie, his partner a six-footer for par. Who putts first?
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