LAGC’s Collin Morikawa returns to the Presidents Cup as the U.S. Team takes on the International Team at Medinah Country Club.
Presidents Cup
Medinah Country Club
Medinah, Illinois
Team U.S. leads series 13-1-1
The Presidents Cup rolls around every other year, and provides another opportunity for fans to embrace team golf and the exciting atmosphere that it offers.
This year, we have a few new faces and a few familiar ones. As for LAGC, Collin Morikawa earned his way onto the U.S. Team as an automatic qualifier.
He’s played his part in Presidents Cups past. We believe he’ll do it again, though he’ll tackle a rather unfamiliar course.
The Presidents Cup at Medinah Country Club
Built in 1924, Medinah Country Club sits 25 miles northwest of downtown Chicago, and the clubhouse — a 120,000-square-foot palace with a Moroccan dome, Byzantine minarets, and distinct architecture — looks more like the ancient Near East than, well… Illinois.
Course No. 3 is where the Presidents Cup gets decided this week, and there’s a ton of history here. Three U.S. Opens, two PGA Championships, the 2019 BMW Championship, and the 2012 Ryder Cup, where Europe pulled off one of the great Sunday comebacks in team golf history, overcoming a 10-8 deficit to win on the final green (just to name a few moments). Medinah has seen it all.
Unfortunately for BMW Championship winner Justin Thomas, this year’s Medinah is different from the Medinah that hosted those storied events. It’s a completely different course. As Medinah’s layout grew more and more predictable and repetitive, they hired Australian-based design team OCM (Ogilvy, Cocking, and Mead) to begin a complete course overhaul in 2022. They finished in the summer of 2024, and they’ve yet to host an event this big since then.
They altered the direction of the course, they widened the fairways, and they expanded the greens. Sounds nice, right? Enter the sand. The number of bunkers jumped from 70 to 117, and the sand area itself doubled, not to mention the placement of the fairway bunkers that keep themselves in play on nearly every hole.
It’s a new golf course with new challenges, and each team will have to get used to it before Thursday.
The Captains
Both captains have represented their teams as players in the past, and each has spent time as assistant captains for their respective teams. That said, one of the captains may have a slight advantage.
Brandt Snedeker captains the U.S. team for the first time.
Geoff Ogilvy captains the International team, also for the first time. And yes, this is the same Ogilvy who redesigned this very course.
So while most of these guys haven’t played the course since before its renovation in 2024 (if ever), Ogilvy is coaching his team on a course he painstakingly designed. He’s quite familiar. While that gives them an edge in some cases, that alone won’t be enough. The International team will have to play great to overcome what they’re up against.
The Americans come into this Presidents Cup boasting a ridiculous record of 13-1-1, where the only loss came in 1998, and the event’s only tie came in 2003 in an iconic showdown between teams captained by Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus.
The Players
Outside of Adam Scott (Boston Common Golf), who returns for his 12th Presidents Cup, these teams just about match each other in Presidents Cup experience, though the U.S. team accounts for 91 PGA Tour wins to the International team’s 49. The U.S. brings three rookies to the Internationals’ four. Here are the teams, separated by automatic qualifiers and captain’s picks:
U.S. Team
Automatic Qualifiers: Scottie Scheffler, Cameron Young, Wyndham Clark, Sam Burns, Russell Henley, Collin Morikawa
Captain's Picks: Chris Gotterup, Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Jacob Bridgeman, Jackson Koivun
International Team
Automatic Qualifiers: Si Woo Kim, Hideki Matsuyama, Ryan Fox, Tom Kim, Min Woo Lee, Adam Scott
Captain's Picks: Sunjae Im, Nico Echavarria, Corey Conners, Nick Taylor, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Ryo Hisatsune
For LAGC, this week is about one man and one man only: Collin Morikawa.
LAGC Storylines
Collin Morikawa — Morikawa comes into his third Presidents Cup with a strong record of 6-2-0, highlighted by his singles record of 2-0 over Mito Pereira in 2022 and Adam Scott in 2024.
This year, he was an automatic qualifier given his incredible season, despite dealing with a back injury suffered at THE PLAYERS Championship.
Look for Collin to bring not only excellent play, but also veteran leadership. Yes, he’s been here a few times, but even better than that, he’s won his battles and contributed heavily to the team’s success each year he’s competed. He’ll be a model for some of these young guys joining the team for the first time.
What to Watch
The U.S. is betting on young talent, as Captain Snedeker selected Jackson Koivun and Jacob Bridgeman to join the team. We’ll see how they perform in a format like this alongside fellow Presidents Cup rookie Chris Gotterup.
At the Biltmore Championship last week, Bridgeman carded a -10 (61) on Sunday to come back and win by two strokes at -26. Koivun went -14 on the weekend to finish T-5 with an overall score of -21. Incredible momentum for them both heading into this week.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler has been historically underwhelming in team events, though his singles win over Rory McIlroy in last year’s Ryder Cup could give him the momentum he needs.