MEDINAH, Ill. — Times have been totally different in 2012, the final time elite match play golf was contested at Medinah Country Club. Spectators pulled out their flip telephones on the first tee within the early morning at that Ryder Cup and tapped the buttons to activate their flashlights.
“It was terrifying to me as a player,” Brandt Snedeker stated Tuesday from the Presidents Cup, once more at Medinah. “That was my first experience.”
Phone expertise has modified a great bit in 14 years, and so has Snedeker’s position. He’s the American captain, a title that carries loads of duty, all the way down to gathering cellphone numbers collectively in a single large group chat.
“I was in charge of the name,” Snedeker stated. “It’s called Medinah ’26. Really inventive, yeah.
“I think it’s a great way to get these young guys involved in the team. I’ve been super impressed with how funny Jacob Bridgeman and Chris Gotterup and Jackson are in these things. It’s been hilarious to me to see them interact with the guys on the team. It’s gotten to the point where Scottie’s even had to chime in, which Scottie is not a big texter. For him to chime in, you know it’s gotten pretty good.”
So what goes on within the chat? It’s one of many 4 fundamental issues we discovered Tuesday from the Presidents Cup, which you’ll be able to learn beneath.
1. Team USA broke its rookies in with … karaoke.
All 24 gamers will inform you in regards to the closeness they really feel from varied staff bonding actions, which they not often expertise on this particular person sport. But a number of of them weren’t too eager on Snedeker’s rookie hazing.
“Last night, the rookies, we had to sing a song for everybody,” first-timer Bridgeman stated. “It was quite a few — there was maybe 40, 50 people in the room, no phones, no videoing nothing. That was nerve-racking but hilarious.”
Bridgeman belted out “God Bless the USA”. Twenty-one-year-old Jackson Koivun went with “Heartless” by Kanye West, and Chris Gotterup selected a Creed traditional, “One Last Breath”.
“I went with Creed last night and destroyed it in a bad way,” Gotterup stated. “Not good. Yeah, it was bad.”
Gotterup can be having a little bit of a tricky time within the group chat.
“My teams have created me being a punching bag,” Gotterup instructed me. “Rutgers has not helped my cause in the group chat. And there was a funny picture from a vacation I went on that was supposed to be secretive, and Jacob [Bridgeman] sent it in the group chat. So I have to get him back at some point.”
As for the context of that picture:
“ No, no,” he stated. “That’s limited information.”
2. Team Kim is again and larger than ever
Among the unforgettable recollections from the final Presidents Cup, in Montreal, was the coming-out occasion for Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim, a Korean duo who’ve gone 2-1 collectively, and every overwhelmed Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns in matches performed aside.
Most lately, they determined to indoctrinate a 3rd Kim into the household.
“I became Brother Kim,” Canadian Nick Taylor instructed us Tuesday.
Si Woo and Tom have been calling Taylor “Nick Kim” ever since becoming a member of up in a 6-ball a few weeks in the past throughout a staff scouting journey to Medinah. In the method, Taylor helped the Kims mop up their cash sport, to the purpose that Tom stated, “We made it rain.”
For Tom, it’s continued by means of the primary two days of this week.
“I’m not [just in the] positive. I’m very positive,” he stated.
3. Sam Burns and Scottie Scheffler collectively once more?
The first participant I had an opportunity to pepper with questions was Sam Burns, who in a short time teased his taking part in companion this week.
“Do you already know who you’re going to play with?” I requested.
“I do, yeah,” he replied.
“Is his name Scottie Scheffler?”
“His name starts with an S,” Burns stated, carrying a smile.
This data might not shock anybody. Scheffler and Burns are finest buds. And they’ve been paired collectively a bunch over time. But these matches, on paper, haven’t delivered fascinating outcomes.
Team Scheffler-Burns have performed 4 matches, dropping 3 times and tying as soon as. All 4 got here on the 2022 Presidents Cup and 2023 Ryder Cup, and we haven’t seen them paired since. But there’s nuance to this match play stuff, and Burns hasn’t forgotten that.
“I feel like we played really well together [in 2022],” Burns stated. “I remember getting off the course and the stats guys were like, ‘well, if you guys would have played any other match this day, you would have won,’ but unfortunately we didn’t.”
4. The Medinah of Old on the Medinah of New
This place is totally different. Course No. 3 at Medinah Country Club has been made solely anew because of the latest renovation. It ought to play and really feel fairly in a different way than the previous few instances it has hosted prime execs, however there’s historical past right here that everybody appears very conscious of.
The 2012 ‘Miracle at Medinah’ that noticed the Europeans mount a historic comeback on Sunday nonetheless rings round vividly in Captain Snedeker’s head.
“As I’ve spoken at length about, I think you learn way more from your losses than your wins,” Snedeker stated Tuesday, “and what happened Sunday at Medinah that year taught me a lot. It taught me how much these guys care, seeing my idols of the game and who I was a teammate with crying in the locker room on Sunday night when things didn’t go our way.
“I think you learn from those experiences. You try to build up a team around those experiences. I’ve built my career around that.”
Sneds is the primary to level out all of the modifications at Medinah; it should completely inform the proceedings and maybe what’s shared and invoked in locker-room speeches this week …
… maybe for each side.
Golf junkie — and Open Champion — Ryan Fox has by no means performed in a staff occasion of this stature, however has gone as far as to attend Presidents Cups earlier in his profession. He has gladly woken up early in his native New Zealand to observe Ryder Cups performed within the United States, and discovered some solution to eat middle-of-the-night matches once they’re hosted in Europe. It’s secure to say he (and some of his teammates) are involved in creating an analogous adverse reminiscence at Medinah for this batch of American opponents.
“I mean, [2012] was such drama,” Fox stated. “It’s hard to pick one moment out of that whole Sunday, but I remember watching that vividly. I’ve seen the documentary on it and everything that happened.
“It gives us a lot of motivation this week that you can do something incredible on a Sunday like that, especially at the same venue.”