The Presidents Cup is a series of men's

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

matches between a team representing the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and an International Team representing the rest of the world except

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

as that continent competes against the United States in a similar but considerably older event, the

Ryder Cup The Ryder Cup is a biennial men's golf competition between teams from Europe and the United States, with hosting duties alternating between venues in Europe and the United States for each edition. The cup is named after the English businessman S ...

. The Presidents Cup has been held biennially since 1994. Initially it was held in even-numbered years, with the Ryder Cup being held in odd numbered years. However, the cancellation of the 2001 Ryder Cup due to the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

pushed both tournaments back a year, and the Presidents Cup was then held in odd-numbered years. It reverted to even-number years following the postponement of the

2020 Ryder Cup The 43rd Ryder Cup Matches were held in the United States from September 24–26, 2021, on the Straits course at Whistling Straits, Haven, Wisconsin. Europe was the holder of the Ryder Cup after its win over the United States in 2018 at Le Golf ...

due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. It is hosted alternately in the United States and countries represented by the International Team. Since 2018, the International team has competed under a specifically designed logo and flag, designed by

Ernie Els Theodore Ernest Els (; born 17 October 1969) is a South African professional golfer. A former , he is nicknamed "the Big Easy" due to his physical stature along with his fluid golf swing. Among his more than 70 career victories are four major ...

and artist Jeff Costa, based on the shield-shaped patches worn by military units. In previous competitions various symbols were used; in 2016 a light-blue flag with five gold stars, one for each continent that can supply players, but this was judged to be too similar to the

Flag of Europe The flag of Europe or European flag consists of twelve Or (heraldry), golden stars forming a Circle of stars, circle on a Azure (heraldry), blue field. It was designed and adopted in 1955 by the Council of Europe (CoE) as a symbol for the who ...

. The next Presidents Cup will be held in 2026 at

Medinah Country Club Medinah Country Club is a private country club in Medinah, Illinois, with nearly 600 members and containing three golf courses, Lake Kadijah, swimming facilities, a golf learning center, golf shop, gun club, racket center and a mosque-evokin ...

Medinah, Illinois Medinah is an unincorporated community in the state of Illinois and is a northwest suburb of Chicago, located in DuPage County. It is neighbored by the three villages of Roselle, Itasca, and Bloomingdale along old Chicago–Galena highway bet ...

, United States.

Format

The scoring system of the event is

match play Match play is a scoring system for golf in which a player, or team, earns a point for each hole in which they have bested their opponents; as opposed to stroke play, in which the total number of strokes is counted over one or more rounds of 18 h ...

. The format is drawn from the Ryder Cup and consists of 12 players per side. Each team has a captain, usually a highly respected golf figure, who is responsible for choosing the pairs in the doubles events, which consist of both alternate shot and best ball formats (also known as "

foursomes Foursomes, also known as alternate shot, is a pairs playing format in the sport of golf. Golfers compete in teams of two, using only one ball per team, and taking alternate shots until the hole is completed. Team members take turns in teeing off ...

" and " fourball" matches respectively). Each match, whether it be a doubles or singles match, is worth one point with a half-point awarded to each team in the event of a halved match. There have been frequent small changes to the format, although the final day has always consisted of 12 singles matches. The contest was extended from three days to four in 2000. In 2015, there were nine foursome doubles matches, nine fourball doubles matches, and 12 singles matches. With a total of 30 points, a team needed to get 15.5 points to win the Cup.

Ties

Until the 2005 event, prior to the start of the final day matches, the captains selected one player to play in a tie-breaker in the event of a tie at the end of the final match. Upon a tie, the captains would reveal the players who would play a sudden-death match to determine the winner. In 2003, however, the tiebreaker match ended after three holes because of darkness, and the captains, Gary Player and Jack Nicklaus, agreed that the Cup would be shared by both teams. From 2005 to 2013, singles matches ending level at the end of the regulation 18 holes were to be extended to extra holes until the match was won outright. All singles matches would continue in this format until one team reaches the required point total to win the Presidents Cup. Remaining singles matches were only to be played to the regulation 18 holes and could be halved. Although this rule was in force for five Presidents Cup contests, no matches actually went beyond 18 holes.

History

The event was created and is organized by the

PGA Tour The PGA Tour (stylized as PGA TOUR by its officials) is the organizer of professional golf tours in North America. It organizes most of the events on the flagship annual series of tournaments also known as the PGA Tour, the PGA Tour Champion ...

. Each contest has an Honorary Chairman or Chairwoman, the

head of state A head of state is the public persona of a sovereign state.#Foakes, Foakes, pp. 110–11 "

he head of state He or HE may refer to: Language * He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...

being an embodiment of the State itself or representative of its international persona." The name given to the office of head of sta ...

head of government In the Executive (government), executive branch, the head of government is the highest or the second-highest official of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presid ...

of the host nation.

Charity

There is no prize money awarded at the Presidents Cup. The net proceeds are distributed to charities nominated by the players, captains, and captains' assistants. The first ten Presidents Cups raised over

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

32 million for charities around the world.

Results

Champions by team

Future venues

*2026

, United States *2028

Kingston Heath Golf Club Kingston Heath Golf Club is one of the premier golf clubs in Australia, located in Cheltenham, Victoria, Cheltenham, Victoria, Australia, Victoria. The course is situated on the Melbourne Sandbelt, sandbelt region in the southeast suburbs of Mel ...

Cheltenham, Victoria Cheltenham is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, 18 km south-east of Melbourne's Melbourne central business district, Central Business District, located within the Cities of City of Bayside, Bayside and City o ...

, Australia *2030 Bellerive Country Club,

Town and Country, Missouri Town and Country is a city in west St. Louis County, Missouri, United States with a population of 11,640 as of the 2020 census. Town and Country has the highest median household income ($134,387 in 2009) of any city in Missouri with a population ...

, United States

Records

*Most appearances on a team: 12
°

Phil Mickelson Philip Alfred Mickelson (born June 16, 1970) is an American professional golfer who currently plays in the LIV Golf League. He has won 45 events on the PGA Tour, including six Men's major golf championships, major championships: three Masters ...

(USA), 1994–2017 *Most points: 32
°

(USA) (26–16–13 record) *Most singles points won: 7
°

Tiger Woods Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in List of golfers with most PGA Tour wins, PGA Tour wins, ranks second in List of men's major championships winning golfers, men's m ...

(USA) (7–2–0 record) *Most foursomes points won: 14
°

(USA) (12–6–4 record) *Most fourball points won: 13
°

(USA) (10–5–6 record) *Most points in a single contest: 5
°

Mark O'Meara Mark Francis O'Meara (born January 13, 1957) is an American retired professional golfer. He was a tournament winner on the PGA Tour and around the world from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s. He spent nearly 200 weeks in the top-10 of the Offici ...

(USA) 1996
°

Shigeki Maruyama Shigeki Maruyama (丸山茂樹, ''Maruyama Shigeki''; born 12 September 1969) is a Japanese professional golfer. Early life Maruyama was born in Ichikawa, Japan, near Tokyo. He attended Nihon University. Professional career In 1992, he turne ...

(Int) 1998
°

(USA) 2009
°

Jim Furyk James Michael Furyk (born May 12, 1970) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour and the PGA Tour Champions. In 2010, he was the FedEx Cup champion and PGA Tour Player of the Year. He has won one major championship, the 2 ...

(USA) 2011
°

Branden Grace Branden John Grace (born 20 May 1988) is a professional golfer from South Africa who currently plays for LIV Golf. He formerly played on the European Tour, the PGA Tour, and the Sunshine Tour. In 2012, he became the first player in the history ...

(Int) 2015
°

Jordan Spieth Jordan Alexander Spieth (; born July 27, 1993) is an American professional golfer on the PGA Tour and former world number one in the Official World Golf Ranking. He is a three-time major winner and the 2015 FedEx Cup champion. Spieth's first m ...

(USA) 2022 *Youngest player:
° Ryo Ishikawa (Int) 2009 *Oldest player:
°

Jay Haas Jay Dean Haas (born December 2, 1953) is an American professional golfer formerly of the PGA Tour who now plays on the PGA Tour Champions. Early life and amateur career Haas was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and grew up in Belleville, Illinois ...

(USA) 2003 Sources

References

External links

* * {{PGA Tour Events Team golf tournaments PGA Tour events Recurring sporting events established in 1994 1994 establishments in Virginia