THE PRESIDENTS CUP

September 1, 2026

Geoff Ogilvy

Medinah Country Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We will go ahead and get started. Geoff, thank you for joining us. I know you just made your six picks, and your 12-man team is now rounded out.

If you don't mind starting off with a few thoughts on how it feels to be at this point in the process on the way to the 2026 Presidents Cup.

GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, it feels really good. Obviously there's a lot of discussion and conversation and looking at watching the golf and watching results and looking at stats and data and talking with the assistant captains up to this point.

There's sort of all these unknowns up until you make your picks and you've got your actual 12. So having the actual 12, it's a really nice feeling. We can go ahead and start focusing on some pairings and how we're going to get these guys out there in the different formats and really start the communication with the group as a whole, as sort of that collective 12.

It's nice to get to this point. It feels like it takes you a long time to get here. With only three weeks or so to go until the tournament, it's starting to feel pretty real.

Q. Geoff, is Jason Day still dealing with injuries? Does that have anything to do with your decision to not choose him?

GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, I spoke to Jason quite a lot, sort of between post-British Open, I would say. He obviously was struggling with it, from a bit earlier than that, U.S. Open time.

It just didn't feel a hundred percent guarantee that he could make it through four days of the Presidents Cup. It was a bit risky. He's clearly one of the first players from our list of players to choose from, and he needs to rehab it and make it feel better, and to rush his rehab and hope it lasts for a week, that feels a bit risky.

With sort of the Viktor thing at the Ryder Cup last time, it was sort of on my mind a little bit too. I talked about it with Jason a little bit, and it's a shame, as I said, because he's played a lot of Presidents Cup, and he's clearly a class act and a major winner and former No. 1 in the world.

It was my decision in the end, but it felt like the right decision. He needs to go and look after his back and get himself back to 100 percent.

Q. How did you settle on C.Bez, who's kind of pretty far down in the World Rankings and FedExCup as well, didn't have the best of years?

GEOFF OGILVY: This is interesting. He sort of -- we used the official World Golf Rankings to pick it or to at least rank our players and get our automatic picks.

He's a bit of a sort of an outlier in that his world ranking doesn't reflect his skill level. He hasn't had a whole lot of high finishes this year, which is where you get all the world ranking points. But he's finished really solid in a lot of tournaments, and his strokes gained and all his skill sets when you measure him up against all of the other players, he was well inside our top 12, believe it or not.

If you look at even just on the basic, the strokes gained, world ranking -- if you go on the website and look at the strokes gained world ranking and not the official world ranking, he's right up there in the middle of our list.

And that combined with he's a fantastic team guy in the team room, and his record in the Presidents Cup is really strong. He's a fantastic putter and a fantastic iron player.

It was pretty easy to find a way on the team for him because the only measure of his sort of thing that doesn't look as good is probably the official World Golf ranking. Every other metric, he became really obvious for us.

Q. Building on that just a little bit, you've been part of other team rooms, and each year it seems like you guys do pluck someone from a little down in the points list; Si Woo a couple years ago when he was struggling. You took some guys last year, too. I'm just wondering your general philosophy of how you're building out that room. When we look at it, it looks like a surprise when we go down the board. That narratively is kind of there. Just wondering how you kind of go about building out that room.

GEOFF OGILVY: I think Si Woo turned out. The way he's played the last couple years, that turned out to be a pretty good pick last time and the way he performed in the tournament.

Look, there's a lot of ingredients, I think, that goes towards making a good teammate and a good pick in this tournament, and it's not just the ranking on the list.

And I just explained to Adam in my previous answer, there's those who stood out, like in my example, sort of statistically, and that sort of works.

Si Woo last time was a little bit interesting because that was sort of one of those innate feelings, just the feeling that we know he loves this tournament and he's going to play really well.

Sometimes it's maybe there's just a natural foursomes -- there is a natural foursomes partner for them. These courses, sometimes these foursomes there's a lot of lopsidedness to the golf course and someone gets lots of drives and someone gets lots of putts, and you can put a good driver with a good putter, and you can sort of highlight their strengths and sort of hide their weaknesses a little bit.

Sometimes there's a bit of that.

There's also personality on the team. We also have nationalities and countries they come from. Do they blend well with everybody else? Do they bring something to the room?

It's a long list of ingredients we look at and it's not apples to apples, so it comes down to a gut decision in the end of the day. There's a lot of factors, not just the ranking list, that we look at to sort of compile the team.

Q. Sorry if this has already been asked. I just jumped on. But Adam Scott tying the record for 12 Presidents Cup appearances, wondering do you talk to him about selections as well? What does it mean to have a guy with his experience on the team?

GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, he's set records all year. 100 consecutive majors this year as well. One of the best records we're ever going to see, 12 Presidents Cups. Basically he's been on this Presidents Cup team his whole career, which is amazing.

Yeah, it's great to have him on the team. Obviously I've been friends with Adam since we were junior golfers. I've been talking to him a lot. I run a lot of things by him, all of us do in sort of the leadership side of things from the International Team. He's a big part of that. So I've run some stuff by him.

He's been at more Presidents Cups than me, so he brings a lot of experience. He's still a player and he wants to just be a player and he doesn't want to be anywhere near the captains, but we do ask him some questions and he brings a lot to the table. And he brings so much respect in the locker room. When Adam starts talking, all the boys start listening.

When he started playing this tournament, I mean, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh and those guys were the old guys that he'd sort of listen to in the locker room, and now he's one of those guys. It's been fun along the way to see that progression.

Yeah, he's a massive asset to the team, and to have a guy who's been to so many of these tournaments, still playing some of the best golf in the world, it's pretty cool.

Q. I just wanted to ask you one more. It's a helluva streak the Americans are on. To break it is going to take something special. Maybe when you think back to the Americas Cup in sailing, you know, John Bertrand did something special. Who have you sort of gone to? What's it going to take? Is it going to take something out of the box to break this streak?

GEOFF OGILVY: Well, look, we haven't done it since 1998, so it's been a long time. I don't know, there's a lot of ingredients, I think, going into having a really great week. The U.S. Team is really strong. It's a good team with a lot of world class players on it, and they seem to always play very well when they play against us in this tournament.

I don't know exactly what it's going to take. Hopefully we've got some ideas. Hopefully we can sort of bring it into Chicago and get the right pairings out there and the right matchups and get everyone playing with the right energy and sink a few putts.

It's closer than it looks. We actually won more holes like last time in Montreal than the U.S. did. We just lost the hole two or three times more than they did, and that's sort of it. The difference was really, really close.

In Charlotte, I think we hit more fairways and greens and we sort of had better ball striking stats, but the putting sort of, we got out-putted in Charlotte.

If you actually look statistically afterwards, it's really -- it's very close. It's just whatever it is, some of those X-factors you have to pull out in this tournament. You see the Europeans do it in the Ryder Cup pretty regularly. They seem to elevate themselves more than the U.S. Team do, and we've just got to find a way to do that.

Q. I was actually going to bring up the exact point that you just mentioned about the Montreal Cup, about how the hole-by-hole is extremely close. To put it bluntly, if you're looking at it from the outside perspective you would go, oh, wow, one side pretty much blew it strategically if they had an equally good team but still lost by that many. So I was just going to ask what you learned from that Cup from that angle, and also from the strange angle of how it started, you know, going down 5-0 and winning 5-0 the next day. I imagine there's a lot to take from both of those sessions and different days. So I'll leave you with that.

GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, I'll start with sort of a lopsided first two days. That was a first. I don't think there will be another Cup like it. It was 0-5 first day for us and then 5-0 Friday.

I mean, Friday last time in Montreal was one of the funnest days I've ever had on the golf course, sort of sweeping the U.S. in foursomes. Like Si Woo Kim holing a putt on the hole to finish it off for us. It was a pretty amazing time for us.

I think we probably didn't deal with the next 12 hours very well because it feels like a bit of a victory when you come off a Friday like that. I think the boys were maybe a little bit flat on Saturday. We maybe sort of -- didn't sort of take a breath and sort of reset. We were back to square one, if you like, on Saturday morning there.

While we certainly feel like we've learned a bit from that experience, it was a fun experience to be a part of. Not the 0-5 on Thursday, but the 5-0 was a great experience.

Then to sort of the beginning of your question, yeah, I think if -- when people look at the final score probably of the last two, you'll see, oh, it's lopsided. The U.S. have just dominated the International Team.

I think anybody on the ground who was actually there don't have that feeling. It's clearly very close. We just lost the 18th hole two or three times, four times in Montreal. I don't know, sometimes -- is that lack? Is that energy? Is it drive for the team? Is it pairings?

That's a really hard one to put your finger on. I don't know that it's anything the captains could have done. Maybe it was. I'm not sure. It was closer than it looked.

In Charlotte there was actually a period for an hour there on Sunday in the singles where like it was more than mathematically possible. I think it felt really on. Then the final result, the final result is a bit of a throw-off because once that clinching match has been done, everyone on the golf course feels a bit flat. Sort of, let's finish those matches as quick as possible. It feels like they're dead rubbers a bit when matches are over.

Look, we can talk so much about all these sort of philosophies and theories, and until we do it, everyone is going to roll their eyes and say, oh, well, you're not winning this tournament. Once we do it, everyone's going to say, you guys are geniuses. You worked it out.

I don't know that there are any specific that's are actually going to get this thing done. We keep sort of polishing the diamond, if you like. And not that we're a diamond, but you know what I mean. You just keep trying to get a little bit better, and you look back at the last one, and you're like, right, we could have done that better and we could have done that better and we could have done that better. Both teams do that in this events.

I think we fixed a few things that we didn't quite do as well in Montreal. In Montreal we did the same thing looking back at the Charlotte one. Then we'll do this one and assess it after that. We're going to keep trying. We've got a great group of guys who are really, really into this tournament. I think collectively the group is more enthusiastic about the Presidents Cup every single time it comes around, and I think that's a big part of it.

Yeah, we just -- we look back every time and try to do it better the next time.

Q. Just if I can follow-up quickly, that's the strategy side of it. Maybe you already answered it. But from a cultural side, I was going to ask, do you think you're making strides in that? Obviously the challenge of the International Team is being from international, whatever that means, is not the same as being all for Europe. It's so many cultures and languages and all that stuff, but you mentioned the excitement and the enthusiasm, is that building over time?

GEOFF OGILVY: Absolutely. When I first started playing this tournament we sort of started talking about it the week before, and now it really is a rolling two-year thing, and the International Team is sort of a constant amongst that.

When Ernie introduced the shield, like the international shield, he really felt very strongly in 2019 that we needed sort of this one identity or this one sort of something to play under as opposed to bringing all of our national flags, if you like, to the team room, and it was very powerful.

It sort of got the group together. Everyone sort of had this one identity that they walked into a room, and when they walked into a room with the shield on there, they were part of something bigger than themselves and special, and they were part of a big group.

It's been very powerful, and it's been getting better and better ever since that sort of togetherness, if you like. So Ernie introducing the shield and sort of showing that, look, now we are one team. It doesn't matter where we come from. We come from all around the field, that our identities is that we're sort of -- we've all traveled from somewhere else to come and ply our trade on the PGA TOUR. That is our identity.

I think that's been a really powerful thing, and every Cup since Trevor did an amazing job sort of progressing that, and Weirsy again in Montreal. Like I said, the Weirsy -- the International Team is more of a constant. The group is obviously together. The group is very large, and we just sort of narrowed it down to 12 for this actual tournament, but it will go back to the bigger group once the tournament is over.

The language barrier that we used to have and the cultural and the food differences and like everybody laughing at different jokes and all the different -- the challenges we had over the years, I think we've navigated through that and we've come out stronger, I think. I think it was -- our team had to go through that. I'm sure the European team back in the Ryder Cup had to go through that back in the day too. They're a very together unit as well.

We're very good on that front now. We've just got to crack the code on the golf course now.

Q. I don't usually ask insensitive questions, but I noticed that if you had not picked Christiaan Bezuidenhout, you would not have any South Africans on the team. I wondered if his selection had anything to do with the rich history of South African golf, as far as I know, all the way back to Bobby Locke. I'm sure there are other people who have played well off and on over time, but right now there are other countries that seem to be stepping up. Did that have something to do with his selection?

GEOFF OGILVY: No, not really actually. To the answer of my last question, we sort of -- all the international golfers, we all sort of fly under the same flag now.

I actually hadn't noticed that until you said that. Normally South Africa with the whole history of the Presidents Cup and the International Team has been very, very well-represented, yeah.

There's some young South Africans coming along, sort of that were a big part of the selection, sort of thinking this time as well. It's just probably an aberration that there's only one Bez, one South African on this team I think. We picked Bez because for the reasons I said before, he's great, he's consistent, and he brings a lot to the team room.

Didn't actually think about where he came from relative to, oh, we need to put a South African on the team. Yeah, we don't think about that at all.

Q. Well, that's good.

GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, we really are one unit for sure.

Q. Curious with your great knowledge of the No. 3 course based on the redesign, a lot of factors that go into your picks, but was there one pick that was particular to matching up that player with the golf course?

GEOFF OGILVY: Well, this time it's interesting because like I know Medinah No. 3 obviously very well from a sort of a design and construction perspective, but it's interesting because we don't have any historical ShotLink data from the new course, like we've got it all from the old but that's not relevant anymore.

Normally, let's say, it's Quail Hollow, you look at the stats and what's worked here historically, and you'll maybe lean towards a guy like that because of that, but we didn't really have that.

So there was some guesswork. I've got some ideas about what's going to have some success, and our analytics team made some guesses about what's going to have some success. We don't really know yet. You can make your best guesses.

But not really. It was more -- it's personalities, and it's what -- there's the foursomes angle too. Who suits who, and there really is some complementary skill sets that really work in foursomes sometimes.

So not really. My guess is great iron play is going to be good there, but that good iron play works pretty well everywhere. The best player in the world is the best iron player in the world.

So that's probably not really going out on much of a limb. Look, great iron players and great putters, it's not particularly narrow, so I don't think it's got a bit of width off the tee. It's going to ask some questions off the tee, but it's not particularly narrow.

Probably we're not necessarily looking at the straightest drivers. But look, I mean, you look for long hitters. You look for great iron players. You look for great putters. I think that is probably true at most courses.

Time will tell. We're going to know after this tournament there's a couple of guys that stand out, and we'll know maybe it's because they're great at a certain aspect. We all have learned from a golf side of view that also the architecture side of things that maybe OCM redesigned golf course suits a certain set of golfers. I don't know, we'll find out.

Q. Are you nervous at all about that?

GEOFF OGILVY: I'm a little nervous. Look, we're very happy with the way the course turned out. Look, the client is\Medinah Country Club, and they love it. They're very happy with the work we did there. Ultimately we're happy because the club asked us to help them out and they're happy with the results. That always is a success.

Always when professionals get on your golf course, you're a little bit nervous because we have some very varying opinions, professional golfers, on the places we play, and hopefully they're all positive reviews for sure.

THE MODERATOR: We'll go ahead and wrap there. Geoff, thank you so much for your time.