No golf tournament is perfect. You can have the biggest crowds, the world’s best players in the field and great TV ratings and there will always be some aspect of the event that can be improved.

Which beings me to the Presidents Cup and the glaring need to tweak the current event to not only achieve closer results, have the best players competing and nip in the bud continual comparisons with the Ryder Cup.

Tim Finchem, the long-running commissioner of the PGA Tour which owns the Presidents Cup, admitted during his opening and closing ceremony speeches each staging of the Presidents Cup seems better than the previous one. That doesn’t happen without some lessons being learned and some changes being made along the way.

While the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne was a fantastic sporting event and one I will remember for the rest of my days, it could do with some changes. The final result being engraved into the big gold trophy showing the Americans had won again, this time a long way from home, just confirmed something has got to change for future matches.

International captain Greg Norman and I are on the same page here. On the eve of the Cup, the Shark said his International team needed to win for the Presidents Cup to remain a relevant event.  The fact the Internationals lost hasn’t diminished the Cup’s relevance ... yet. But I think change can only be good for the event.

Norman believes two changes should be made. He believes the host nation should have the right to select the order of play in terms of format. With the foursomes being an obvious weakness for the Internationals, he would never select to play that first or in the morning session on day three. He also believes the International captain should have the benefit of four captain’s picks instead of two.

“We do get our cage rattled a little bit in the foursomes,” Norman said. “So maybe that just gets our confidence level off. What’s wrong with the host nation having the choice of the format anyway? Any golf tournament has got to be fine-tuned every year.”

Norman’s fine-tuning suggestions are already in a report on its way to PGA Tour headquarters in Florida.

Personally, I’d like to see an overhaul, not fine-tuning, of the event so the matches not only go down to the wire but the excitement surrounding the Presidents Cup will be self-generating and a team captain won’t have to ever have to fly in a cheer squad to pump up the crowd ever again (see page 18). Here’s what I would put in a report to Finchem.

THE TEAM SELECTION PROCESS

The current system has the United States team selections being based on the PGA Tour money list with the top-10 players automatically qualifying and the captain having two choice picks. For the Internationals, the top-10 qualify via their world ranking and the captain also gets two picks.

Norman says this system is flawed, at least for the Internationals, and the answer is increasing the number of captain’s picks from two to four.

I say, let the captains pick all 12. Instead of sitting down to name their two picks a few months before the staging of the matches, the captains would meet at the ‘All The Presidents Men Conference’ where they would systematically name their team.

It would be the same selection process that we all used as kids for games of park footy or cricket.

Of course, the best players – based on any criteria from money lists or world rankings – will always be picked up by the captains. But it will be the positions from seven through 12 that would prove interesting.

INTRODUCE A ROTA OF COURSES

The success of the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne suggests the Cup should be back there sooner rather than later. To that end, the PGA Tour should consider employing a rota of eight courses – four US courses and four spread elsewhere around the planet.

My suggestions are: Shinnecock Hills, Oakmont, Pebble Beach, Merion (US courses); Royal Melbourne Composite (Australia), Hirono (Japan), Leopard Creek CC (South Africa) and Jade Palace (South Korea).

The make-up of the rota could obviously change as the general make-up of International team nationalities changes.

ONE LESS FOURSOMES

Instead of playing two sessions of foursomes and two of four-balls, drop one foursomes session in favour of two-man Ambrose match-ups. Can you imagine the exciting birdie-fest galleries would be treated to?

BAN THE KNUCKLE TAP

The ‘knuckle tap’ between team mates must be banned. It looks stupid and isn’t a patch on the high-five or even the old-fashioned handshake, which I suspect is now extinct unless it is accompanied by all manner of dance-like moves or chesting manoeuvre.

QUALIFYING CUPS

International assistant captain Frank Nobilo has the right idea. The team that wins the Presidents Cup qualifies to play the holder of the Ryder Cup the following year. When that Ryder Cup is decided, both Cup ‘losing teams’ would go head-to-head again for the right to play the Ryder Cup again.

This is, unfortunately, never likely to happen because the major stakeholders in the Ryder Cup couldn’t stand it if the United States wasn’t part of their event. I think Samuel Ryder would love it.

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