‘It Sucks For Them’ – Brandt Snedeker Responds To JJ Spaun Comments Over Presidents Cup Snub

US Presidents Cup captain Brandt Snedeker has responded to comments made by JJ Spaun, who was left bemused after not receiving a pick for the biennial match play showdown against the International Team at Medinah this week.

Spaun, the 2025 US Open winner, claimed a stunning victory at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, beating a star-studded field to the title on his debut in the DP World Tour’s flagship event.

The 36-year-old took down some of the biggest names in golf, including three of this year’s four Major champions in Rory McIlroy, Aaron Rai and Ryan Fox, and aimed some pointed remarks at Snedeker in the aftermath.

“I played with a huge chip on my shoulder,” Spaun said. “I definitely had something to prove this week. But everything happens for a reason. I'm so delighted to be here and just to even play this event.

“I've always wanted to play for the longest of time. The extra motivation, I think that is the willpower that you kind of have. And being left off the Presidents Cup team a couple weeks ago was very disappointing, and you know, I wanted to prove that I deserve to be on that team.

“I took care of my business this week. So all the best to the team next week at Medinah and I'll be watching.”

Spaun also revealed that, when delivering the bad news, Snedeker called him the “odd man out” and that the phone call lasted all of 45 seconds.

The American, who is now up to 12th in the world rankings, didn’t enjoy the strongest finish to his PGA Tour season and withdrew from the Tour Championship with a shoulder injury.

Snedeker was tight-lipped on whether that factored into his decision to use his six captain’s picks on Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, Patrick Cantlay, Chris Gotterup, Jacob Bridgeman and Jackson Koivun.

“There's a lot of guys that were in that conversation,” Snedeker said at Medinah. “One of the hardest things I think I've had to do is look at how deep our team is. There was 15, 16, 17 guys that had a legit chance of doing this.

“There's a lot of factors that go into these decisions. It's tough. It's not fair to a lot of these guys. That's the way it comes.

“At the end of the day, the best advice I've gotten from every captain I've talked to is to trust your gut. So that's kind of what I did. I trusted my gut and went with Jackson and Jacob, as kind of the last two weeks is the way it turned out.

“Excited for those guys. Excited for those young guys to be out there and go compete.”

Pushed to elaborate further on the Spaun injury and how much of an influence it had, Snedeker added: “I'm not going to give specifics on the players that didn't make our team. I feel like this process is about the 12 players we did select.

“There are plenty of guys who, unfortunately, didn't make the team. That sucks for them. They put two years of their life into this. They deserve to be on the team. But I'm not going to get into specifics why X player or Y player didn't make it.”

The US begin the Presidents Cup as the overwhelming favourites to continue their dominance in the event and claim an 11th successive victory. Snedeker's opposite number, International Team captain Geoff Ogilvy, will be eager to snap that streak and guide his side to what would be just a second non-American win.