Countdown begins for Presidents Cup

An Byeong-hun; Jason Day; Nick Price; Jordan Spieth; Rickie Fowler; Bae Sang-moon

By Nam Hyun-woo

With 30 days left until the Presidents Cup, Korean fans are counting down to one of the biggest golfing events ever held in an Asian country.

As the preparations to host golfing champions are in full swing, the organizing committee said it has finished renovating the golf course and all that remains is pitching the golf tournament to the local public.

The Presidents Cup is a biennial golf tournament in which the top 12 golfers representing the U.S. play against 12 other top non-European golfers representing the International Team. It is aired in some 250 countries in 30 languages, and the expected viewership is over 1 billion.

The 2015 event will run from Oct. 8 through Oct. 11 at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club in Songdo, Incheon. Practice rounds are scheduled from Oct. 5 to 7, and the Oct. 6 and 7 rounds will be open to the public.

Final week to qualify

As the competition approaches, interest focuses on who will compete. The squads will become official on Sept. 8, with the top 10 players on each team selected by point standings after this week’s 2015 Deutsche Bank Championships. For the two remaining berths on each team, the two captains _ U.S. Team Captain Jay Haas and International Team Captain Nick Price _ will make their picks on Sept. 8.

With Jordan Spieth and Jason Day respectively leading each team’s rankings, more interest is on who will earn the last tickets to the top 10.

For the U.S. team, FedEx Cup ranking 10th-placed Chris Kirk, 11th-placed Bill Haas and 12th-placed J.B. Holmes are in a close race. Should Bill Haas, Jay Haas’ son, fail to make it into the top 10, there comes a dilemma: Will the captain pick his own son?

In the 2013 Presidents Cup, the younger Haas made the team in 8th place through points ranking, while Spieth was picked by U.S. Team Captain Fred Couples. The U.S. Team won the event and now the older Haas, who was assistant captain two years ago, is now captain and Couples is assistant.

For the International Team, a Korean-born Kiwi, Danny Lee, is in 10th place, followed by Steven Bowditch and a Korean An Byeong-hun.

Lee appeared in 33 PGA Tour events and placed in the top 10 seven times, as well as winning the Greenbrier Classic. It appears that Lee is on his game given that he scored in the top six in seven recent competitions. Australian Bowditch, who is this season’s AT&T Byron Nelson winner, is keeping Lee in close range, finishing 13th at the Barclays after firing 64 on the final round.

Renovated course and rules

Opened in September 2010, the 7,412 yard, par 72 Jack Nicklaus Golf Club was designed by the 18-time major champion Nicklaus and underwent some 1.2 billion-won renovation over the past two years.

According to the organizing committee, the difficulty of the course has been raised through the renovation. “As the competition features top golfers, the difficulty of the course has been raised so that matches can be decided by birdies or eagles,” an official said.

Six more bunkers were added to the course along with surrounding roughs to make the course more difficult. This may become an advantage for power hitters but the organizers also flattened the slopes so that even the power hitters should not reach the greens too easily. The organizers said that if the players do well on the 14th hole ― because of its difficulty ― they stand a good chance of doing well in the competition.

Also to add more excitement, the PGA Tour said last week that it has changed the format of the competition. The total number of matches will be reduced from 34 to 30.