A merger that may make the ideal match

Gary Van Sickle puts forth a proposal that would put a jolt into the Presidents Cup, as well as the Ryder Cup — and ponders if Samuel Ryder would approve.

There is nothing wrong with the Presidents Cup that one or two top-10 players in the world on the International side wouldn’t fix.

Maybe this is a minority opinion but I like the Presidents Cup. Team match play is the most entertaining format in televised golf, especially when pride and country is at stake instead of money.

The Internationals were game opponents until late Saturday. That’s when they clawed back in foursomes play to square the three remaining matches (after Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley flipped a 3-down deficit into a 3-up win) and then promptly lost all three. Had the Internationals turned those into wins, Sunday’s singles would have begun with a 9-9 tie instead of an ominous 11-7 U.S. lead.

I’ve heard other suggestions about “fixing” the Presidents Cup. The one about including the LPGA and played mixed-team matches is among the worst. Even though the LPGA Tour is trending upward in interest and prize money, LPGA events don't draw TV ratings comparable to men’s golf. The sum of viewers for the last two Solheim Cups (about 935,000), for instance, is less than half of Sunday’s President Cup viewership (1.89 million) when the outcome wasn’t in doubt and the NFL was in action.

The easiest way to improve the Presidents Cup is almost obvious. Just ask yourself, “What would Samuel Ryder do if he was inventing the Ryder Cup today?”

Well, he’d include the whole world, obviously. When the Ryder Cup began in 1927, only the U.S., Great Britain and Ireland had significant numbers of professional golfers. There wasn’t even air service across the Atlantic Ocean yet — Charles Lindbergh became the first flier to cross that divide only a few months earlier in May that year. The Ryder Cup teams traveled tediously by ocean liner.

When it came to golf in 1927, there was no “rest of the world.”

I’ve been offering my Presidents Cup solution for almost two decades now. Notably, I brought this up at the 2006 Ryder Cup in Ireland.

I was sitting in the press tent at the K Club, where my seat was next to a waist-level retaining wall. I sensed someone standing to my left. I turned and looked just as the gentleman there turned and looked back at me. It was PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem. We made eye contact. So, awkward conversation was mandatory, per social custom. As a former lawyer, conversing casually was not Finchem’s strength.

I was probably asking for trouble but, in search of a topic, I sprung my Presidents Cup solution on him. What would you think of this, I asked? The Presidents Cup could be the qualifier for the Ryder Cup. The winning Presidents Cup team would advance to play the defending Ryder Cup team the following year on the champions’ home soil.

It would be a win-win. For the PGA of America, the Ryder Cup would truly go global as golf-crazy nations such as Japan, South Korea, South Africa and the continent of Australia would be drawn in. Television rights fees and worldwide interest would explode.

It would be the same for the PGA Tour. The Presidents Cup would suddenly become do-or-die. Imagine an American team or European squad losing the Presidents Cup and missing a chance to play in the Ryder Cup. It would be unthinkable. The Presidents Cup would grow more sizes bigger than the Grinch’s heart on Christmas Eve. (No, I am not drawing a parallel between Finchem and the Grinch.)

The cons, of course, would be that future Ryder Cup sites would have to be scrapped. The defending champion has to host the matches so they would have to be mapped out only two years in advance.

Most of all, there’s the grim possibility that the American or European squad might go four, six or eight years without playing in a Ryder Cup. That would undercut a century of history and might lead to long-term diminished interest in America or Europe even while overall global fervor rose.

When I finished my suggestion, Finchem said matter-of-factly, “We wouldn’t be opposed to that.”

I nearly fell off my chair. I wasn’t expecting that reply. Of course, the Presidents Cup was still battling image and relevance issues in the mid-2000s and my idea would have upgraded the Cup’s profile. The event has grown considerably since then. The PGA Tour’s answer might not be the same today.

The problem with my suggestion is that it would require the PGA of America and the European PGA to become business partners with the PGA Tour and share revenue and decision-making. You’ve got a better chance of building détente between the universities of Alabama and Georgia.

What if the Presidents Cup took a seat right next to the Ryder Cup for a true international match competition? | Photo: Phil Inglis / Golffile

Samuel Ryder wouldn’t leave two-thirds of the world out of his championship matches. It always seemed absurd that players such as Greg Norman, Nick Price, Craig Parry and David Graham were missing from the Ryder Cup because they were non-European. They deserved an opportunity to play in such a rivalry. The Presidents Cup, viewed in that light, always seemed like a step toward equal opportunity. It is almost an underdog story.

The same issue was true with the LPGA’s Solheim Cup, which didn’t include Karrie Webb, Se Ri Pak or Lorena Ochoa because they were not European. If Karrie Webb was the world’s best player at one point, didn’t that take some of the luster off the Solheim Cup then? It felt that way.

Now, the LPGA does have the Hanwha LifePlus International Crown, which features eight four-member teams. It’s a nice idea that hasn’t gotten anywhere near Solheim Cup levels of interest. Maybe an International Crown event, modeled after the Presidents Cup with Team USA vs. Rest of the World, would draw more interest. Maybe not, since the Internationals would likely be prohibitive favorites.

Ultimately, it’s the team match play format and the national pride that makes any of these events work. Match play always gets personal between two players or two teams. You see pros get insulted when they’re asked to putt out a three-footer. You see them do things they wouldn’t normally do to try to get under their opponents’ skins. Like, say, wave a cap in retaliation over earlier comments about hatlessness or bark at an opponent after holing a matching birdie putt. It’s great theater and so much different from the flatlining personalities usually presented during buttoned-up stroke play.

The Presidents Cup doesn’t need a makeover unless it is to merge with the Ryder Cup. “I trust that the effect of this match will be to influence a cordial, friendly and peaceful feeling throughout the whole civilized world,” Ryder once said of his matches.

The whole civilized world, in the 21st Century, is now the whole world. Golf is a global game, 97 years since the Ryder Cup’s founding. Ryder would probably be pleased to have played a small part in that growth — the English seed merchant who planted the most important seed of his life.

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