3 Ways To Strengthen The International Team And Make The Presidents Cup More Competitive

USA won its 10th consecutive Presidents Cup and discussion will inevitably now turn to what needs to be done to make the USA vs Internationals match more competitive.

The Internationals have won just one of the 15 editions, with their one and only victory coming 26 years ago in 1998. The 2003 edition was tied and there have been multiple close calls; 16-14 in 2019, 15.5-14.5 in 2015 and 16.5-15.5 in 1996.

Overall, though, the Internationals' record does not make for good reading, so what could be done to make the match more competitive in future editions?

We discuss some potential options...

Mixed event

The most common call to make the Presidents Cup more competitive would be for it to be a mixed competition and involve the best players from the LPGA Tour. Solheim Cup captain Stacy Lewis recently suggested just that.

This would seriously improve the Internationals, who would be able to call upon an extremely strong pool of players including the likes of Lydia Ko, Jin Young Ko, Brooke Henderson, Ruoning Yin, Hannah Green, Amy Yang, Minjee Lee, Yuka Saso, Nasa Hataoka and Atthaya Thitikul.

This seems unlikely, though, as the Presidents Cup is run exclusively by the PGA Tour. It would also raise difficult format changes as to whether the event was made up of 12-person teams or raised to 16 or 20.

LIV Golfers

Jim Furyk was without US Open champion Bryson DeChambeau and five-time Major winner Brooks Koepka but introducing LIV Golfers would undoubtedly help the Internationals' cause more.

Cameron Smith would come back into the side, as would Joaquin Niemann and potentially a number of others like Abraham Ancer, Louis Oosthuizen and Dean Burmester.

This is probably the most likely outcome, as the PGA Tour and Saudi PIF continue to negotiate over a deal.

Europeans

On the face of it, this sounds silly - but hear me out.

The Presidents Cup was designed to help grow the PGA Tour worldwide and also grow the profiles of its international players. Europeans are international players.

Yes, they have their chance to play the Americans in the Ryder Cup, but the Americans also play in that, too.

Adding Europeans, like Rory McIlroy, would increase the Internationals' chances of winning and also help grow the profile of the cup. Here's a way of potentially deciding the International team:

• 2 from Europe
• 2 from the Americas
• 2 from Africa
• 2 from Asia
• 2 from Australasia
• 2 wildcards from any international country