The 14th edition of the Presidents Cup tees off this week at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. This is the first Presidents Cup since 2019 at Royal Melbourne in Australia when the U.S. team had to make a comeback during the Sunday Singles to win. With all the money being thrown around in golf these days, surprisingly, there is no money at stake for the winners. Instead, the PGA Tour contributes to different charities that are nominated by the participants.
Similar to the Ryder Cup, the Presidents Cup is a four-day competition. There will be five “Foursome” matches played on Thursday followed by five “Four-ball” matches on Friday. Saturday features four “Foursome” matches on Saturday morning followed by four “Four-ball” matches in the afternoon. The event finishes with 12 singles matches on Sunday. With 30 matches in total, and each match being worth one point, it will take 15.5 points to win the Cup.
Differing from the Ryder Cup in which the U.S. team plays against Europe, the Presidents Cup features the U.S. team against an “International” team, which specifically excludes players from Europe. It is held every two years, in non-Ryder cup years. The U.S. has dominated the series 11-1-1 with the sole International victory coming in 1998 in Australia.
Each of the teams is comprised of 12 players. Both teams had six qualifiers that were determined by a points list based on performance. Both captains (Davis Love III for the U.S. and Trevor Immelman for the Internationals) also had six “captain” picks. While the U.S. team already had a huge talent advantage, LIV Golf defections decimated the International roster. Two of the main qualifiers, Cam Smith and Joaquin Niemann, left the PGA Tour for LIV leaving Immelman to dig deeper into the player pool for his final team selections.
Below is the overall “Tale of the Tape” for the Presidents Cup. It includes career match play records, Official World Golf Rankings, and Strokes Gained Total per round. Each data chart is from performance over the past 12 months. When looking at the team averages in each category, it is clear to see why the USA is a massive favorite at -700 on most betting sites.
Tale of the Tape
The Course – Quail Hollow Club
The host course for this year is the Quail Hollow Club which is a par 71 that typically measures 7,554 yards. The club annually hosts the Wells Fargo Championship but did not hold the tournament this year due to preparation for this event. The host team has control over the course, and Davis Love III has shortened the rough down to 1.75 inches and increased the green speeds to 13 on the stimp. With the event happening in September and plenty of warm weather, there is no overseed on the greens as is typical for the Wells Fargo. Instead, the greens will be pure Champion Bermuda grass.
There has been another huge change for this event that is connected to the routing of the course. Quail Hollow has one of the most famous three-hole finishing stretches in the world known as “The Green Mile”. Related to match play competition, the problem is that numerous matches end before even reaching those holes. For example, at the last Presidents Cup in Australia, all 30 matches reached the 15th green but only 12 of those got to the 18th hole. So to ensure that the entire Green Mile is in play, those holes have been moved up in the routing and will instead play as holes 13-15.
Strokes Gained and Scoring Analysis
With an average driving distance of 295 yards, combined with the course’s length and a lack of hazards and minimal rough, the course sets up perfectly for being driver-heavy off the tee and gives “bombers” a clear advantage. Along with inaccurate drives not being punished as much as at other venues on Tour, those with longer distance will have shorter approach shots into the firm greens. This will allow them to benefit more from those shots than at other courses where holding the green is not as difficult. In summary, Quail Hollow presents more opportunities to play aggressively off the tee and will allow those players a better chance to separate from opponents that are shorter hitters.
Digging into the numbers, we can see that the U.S. team has an advantage from a distance perspective, gaining an average of 6.4 yards of distance per round to the International team’s 2.7 yards. The Internationals do have an advantage in Driving Accuracy, but with the rough being non-penal, that edge will be mitigated to an extent.
On approach, Quail Hollow ranks as the 12th toughest ShotLink course on which to gain strokes. The average Greens in Regulation (GIR) rate over the past five events is 60.3% which is below the Tour average of 65.6%. Much of this is due to the aforementioned firmness of the greens. On the Par 5s, players “Going for the Green” with their second shots will also have a challenge as the “Hitting the Green” rate is only 14.6% compared to the Tour average of 22.4% on Par 5s at other Tour courses. The U.S. team has a sizeable advantage from a SG: Approach perspective with a 0.17 stroke difference between them. In fact, the U.S. has the top four approach players (and nine of the top 13) in this event.
Around the green, Quail Hollow rates as average in difficulty level when compared to other courses. There are some shaved runoff areas and false fronts that players will have to contend with. Here are how the teams stack up in this area including strokes gained in Scrambling and Sand Saves. The U.S. team again has the overall advantage in this category with 10 of the top 14 performers in SG: ARG.
The greens at Quail Hollow are among the most challenging aspects of the course. Overall it ranks as the 6th toughest venue in which to gain strokes putting. Longer putts will be even more difficult as it ranks as the third toughest course for putts outside of 15 feet. The 3-putt rate is one of the highest on Tour at 3.77%. The chart below includes player data for both 3-putt avoidance and putting from the all-important 5-15 foot range. Again, the U.S. team has the overall edge in each category.
Finally, let’s take a look at the main scoring stats at Quail Hollow including Birdie or Better (BoB) rate, Par 5 Scoring and Bogey Avoidance. The U.S. dominates in Birdie or Better scoring gaining 0.34 birdies per round on the International team. As far as course history here, the U.S. has another huge edge with players like Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Kevin Kisner, Patrick Cantlay, Billy Horschel and Tony Finau each gaining at least 0.83 strokes per round. Along with much less experience on this track, only Hideki Matsuyama’s positive play here can compare with the course history of the U.S. golfers. Of course, Justin Thomas won the 2017 PGA Championship here, and Max Homa won the 2019 Wells Fargo on this course.
Photo by Chris Condon/US PGA TOUR