In summary

  • The Internationals blew a three-point final day lead at Medinah, losing the Presidents Cup by four, despite needing just five of 12 singles points.
  • Eight of the USA's 12-man team have combined for 15 wins in 2026 alone, compared with only three International players who won this year.
  • Captain Geoff Ogilvy defended his selections and tactics, saying the plan was good, but the Americans simply hit the shots and made the putts when it mattered.

Geoff Ogilvy said it a few times in the aftermath of a final-day Presidents Cup collapse, which took his underdog outfit to the brink, before falling well short of what would have been a remarkable win at Medinah. 

“I wouldn't do anything differently,” he said after the International outfit, owned by the USA throughout the 30-year history of the biennial event, gave up a three-point final-day lead to lose by four with little by way of even a Sunday yelp.    

“The plan was pretty good. I wouldn't have changed anything today. Sometimes that just happens.”

The plan was good, the planning to get to the final day was good, the two years spent plotting the path to end a winning drought which stretched back to last century was positive and passionate and filled with all the right intentions and effort.

It was a tough day for the Internationals, including Si Woo Kim. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

But in the end, the difference was, as it has so often been in the Presidents Cup, that the home team in Chicago was chock-full of winners, players; who know how to get it done when it matters.

The Internationals don’t have enough of those players. Not even close.

It’s not that Ogilvy should have done anything differently, it’s that he couldn’t; hamstrung by selection criteria which limited him to a playing cohort who just don’t win very much.

The world rankings made the USA red-hot favourites going in and even being down ahead of the final session, there was a feeling the Internationals, up by three points, still had the job ahead of them.

That was because the Americans know how to close. On their 12-man team in Chicago, eight players have combined for a massive 15 wins in 2026 alone, including the Players Championship, US Open and the Tour Championship.

That’s big-time winning, owning big moments, playing the shots and making the putts when it matters.

World No.1 Scottie Scheffler has won three times and was able to take care of Colombian first-timer Nico Echavarria so comfortably in their singles match, he gifted his opponent a halved hole after a boorish American fan yelled in his backswing on the 14th tee.  

Cameron Young has won twice this year, so has Chris Gotterup. Even Presidents Cup rookies Jacob Bridgeman and 21-year-old Jackson Koivun have PGA Tour victories in 2026.

Bridgeman has won twice, including the event leading into the Presidents Cup and turned his match against Min Woo Lee in the closing stages, winning on the final hole after the Australian blew it off the 18th tee.

That match was tied going to the last after Lee missed a three-foot par putt on the 16th green he’d make without thinking on any other hole in any other round.

Early leads were lost by the Internationals. Si Woo Kim, the top-ranked player on the team, was in front of Koivun, who was playing college golf three months ago, and winning a lot, for the first 11 holes. He ended up losing by two.

Hideki Matsuyama, a Masters winner, was in front of Collin Morikawa when they stood on the 15th tee, but his match was tied going to 18 when the Japanese star, like Lee, couldn’t find the fairway, made bogey and lost. He didn’t even get half a point.

Five matches went to the final green for a result. Not one of them went the International team's way.  

Only three players from the International team have won events in 2026 – Ryan Fox was clutch on the final hole at Royal Birkdale to win the Open Championship, Tom Kim at the Scottish Open and Echavarria in March.

Some of the Internationals won last year, but others last tasted victory two, three or four years ago.

Kim was the recent winner to secure a singles victory in Chicago and Sungjae Im the only other to get a point for the Internationals, who started the day needing to win five of 12 matches to secure the Presidents Cup for the first time since 1998.

Instead, the winners won 9.5 matches; the trophy back in their grasp before the final match was even finished, such was the magnitude of the comeback.

Min Woo Lee had a good event, but couldn't close the deal on Sunday. (Photo by James Gilbert/PGA TOUR via Getty Images)

Hypotheticals mean little in the wash-up, but just imagine if Ogilvy could have picked LIV players like Chilean Joaquin Niemann, who won twice in 2026, and has nine wins on that tour, or Lucas Herbert, in the best form of his career with two LIV wins and a record-equalling round at The Open this year.

Put those guys in front of maybe Ryo Hisatsune, who only played twice, or Echavarria, who was benched after a horror day one and not seen again until the singles, hidden as much as possible by the captain, meaning five players had to play all five matches ... and who knows?  

“You can only make the best decisions at the time,” Ogilvy said, deflated by his eighth Presidents Cup loss, as a player, assistant captain and now captain and asked about fatigue.

“Maybe if we had rested them, maybe we wouldn't have been three-and-a-half points up. I don't think you can do that.”

Questions about the lop-sided nature of the Presidents Cup were put to bed, somewhat, after the opening three days, including a Friday sweep for the Internationals, which turned the spotlight on the underperforming Americans.

However, pluck, passion and enthusiasm only get you so far and when ice-cold confidence was needed, it was the winners - the regular winners, the hungry guys who can say, "I’ll show you what I can do", egged on by the sort of home crowds who add fuel to any momentum fires - who stepped up and nailed the moments that mattered.

“The guys tried their hardest today,” Ogilvy said, referencing their pluck which was never going to be enough.

The putts just did not fall for Adam Scott. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)

“I feel like it's such a momentum game. Just somewhere in the middle of the day - it was sort of on a knife's edge for a long time there in the middle of the day. You have a couple putts go in at the right time and the momentum goes our way, and it just didn't do that today.

“Sometimes you have to hit the shots and make the putts. The US just did that a little bit better today.”

Not just today, but in nearly every Presidents Cup for 30 years.