'Heart’ and Min Woo Lee: Ogilvy plots Presidents Cup upset

Geoff Ogilvy has warned the American Presidents Cup team to underestimate the “heart” of his outfit at its peril as the new International captain plots a path to victory at Medinah which would top his list of career achievements.

A week after the 12-man outfits were confirmed the negativity around the Internationals, who have won the biennial contest just once in 15 encounters, has increased given the strength of their opponents.

Team USA boasts eight of the world’s top 11 ranked players, with only PGA Tour rookie, Jackson Koivun, ranked 65, outside the top 30.

Captain Brandt Snedker was even able to leave out US Open winner, JJ Spaun, who is world No.17, choosing instead to go with perennial team performer Justin Thomas.

The Internationals, by comparison have only one top 20 player in their team, Korean Si Woo Kim, who is world No.13, and four players ranked in the 20s, including Australian star Min Woo Lee (29) and Open champion Ryan Fox (25).

But there are also five players outside the top 50, with South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout, a surprise pick to many, the lowest ranked player in the competition at 96 in the world and with just one top 10 finish on the PGA Tour in 2026.

Ogilvy though said the enthusiasm among a wider group of players eligible for the Presidents Cup, being able to choose from all countries outside of Europe for his team, was palpable.

That was evident and has intensified through copious dinners and practice rounds between would-be teammates, and even a full visit to Medinah Country Club in Chicago where the four-day event will begin on September 24.

Ogilvy was adamant the “analytics” and data which drive so much modern golf discussion were just one element of performance. He said while individual results produced rankings, performances in a team were something altogether different.

Si Woo Kim will take it up to the Americans again. (Photo by Keyur Khamar/PGA TOUR via Getty Images)

The major champion said that was the element he and his assistant captains were leaning into, as were his players, and one which could be more telling come the first day of play.

“It used to be a group that would get together every two years and play a golf tournament. Now it's a constant, the international team, you know, we have dinners all the time, they all play practice rounds. We had an outing last year with the whole group at Medina,” Ogilvy told Australian media on Tuesday morning from the US.

“It feels a bit more…  I don't know what it feels like to be a European leading up to the Ryder Cup, or in the Ryder Cup team, but it feels more like that, you know.

“Really, it probably fired up again when Foxy won the Open, I think.

“The last two President's Cups, by a lot of metrics we outplayed the US team in those, and it just didn't work out for one reason or the other.

“I think that it's the nature of golf these days. Golf is a very analytical stats based sort of from a step-by-scientific viewpoint … and clearly it's not apples to apples. They’ve got four or five of the top guys in the world.

“But that task they're set every week, 72-hole stroke play is a totally different task than getting on a team and playing in match play.

“Where we will excel is that we're going to love playing with each other, we're going to leave no stone unturned getting all the right pairings together and putting them out in the right matchups.

“As anyone who's played any sort of competitive golf knows, 18 holes in match play is sometimes a bit more about heart and the energy of the day … there's so many other factors than just plugging it out for 72 holes and becoming the best player.

“So, when you dig a little bit deeper, I think there's so much more to these tournaments that I, I think we're in a really good spot and got a really good team.”

Ogilvy was reluctant to give away just what some of those key pairings might look like but was happy to declare Lee would be a key part of his team and set for more action than during his debut Presidents Cup in Montreal two years ago.

Lee was only sent out once during team play, benched for three of four sessions by captain Mike Weir, but then tied his Sunday singles match with major champion Wyndham Clark.

Having soared on an individual level since then and coming off a brilliant tie for fourth at the season-ending Tour Championship last month, Ogilvy said the 28-year-old was now a weapon for his team.  

“It's just sort of the way it happened last time,” Ogilvy, who was an assistant to Weir in Montreal said.

“We set out for him to play one or two more times than he actually did. It's just sometimes when those weeks start you run with the momentum.

“We came out of a five-zip run on Friday and we sort of probably pivoted a little bit and Min Woo sort of missed out a little bit.

It's hard to question Min Woo Lee's commitment. (Photo by Keyur Khamar/PGA TOUR via Getty Images)

“Certainly, he's going to play a really big part. He's one of the best players in the world. He's got all the tools, you would think with his flare for big crowds and entertaining, he would sort of thrive in this environment, so we'll definitely get him out there as much as we can.

“But, like, a caveat to that is … it's five sessions, and there's pairings, and how everybody sits into that to get the best of your ingredients.

“There’s fatigue, how people fit into pairings, how the week is flowing, but Min Woo is going to play more of a part in this one than last time, for sure.”

Across a lengthy career, which has included seven Presidents Cup losses as a player and assistant captain, the 2006 US Open win sits as Ogilvy’s crowning achievement.

But he said taking down the USA, on American soil, even though he’s not playing, could bump it from top billing.  

“It'd be pretty high up on the list,” he said.

“Rory (McIlroy) made a quote last year, I think in the middle of the year somewhere saying, I think the greatest achievement in golf at the moment is beating the US team in the US, and I kind of tend to agree, it's very it's a tall task.

“So, to win this and to like sort of create a bit of history, this team's never won in the US, and it's only won once in 1998, so it would be… it would be right up there.  

“I mean, the individual stuff is amazing and obviously I'd always look at the US Open trophy on my shelf and think, wow, that was a pretty good week.  It's interesting because you set out to win individual tournaments as a golfer.

“This is not something you set out that you think is even going to be part of the equation. But now that I'm involved and this group, this international group of players is a special group of guys, and it's amazing to spend that sort of… to have that sort of environment spend that sort of week with them

“To help them get that feeling of what this would be like … it'd be hard to say it wouldn't be number one.”