THE PRESIDENTS CUP

September 26, 2026

Brandt Snedeker

Geoff Ogilvy

Medinah Country Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: I will turn it over to Gary Young, chief referee of the match committee, for pairings for round 5 singles matches.

GARY YOUNG: If everyone's ready, we'll get started with round 5 pairings. Round 5 will be played singles format, consists of 12 matches. Following round 4, team totals are currently the United States 7½ points, the International Team 10½ points.

The United States team selected first in round 4. Therefore, the International Team will select first in round 5.

Captain Ogilvy, your selection for match 19, please.

GEOFF OGILVY: Ryo Hisatsune.

GARY YOUNG: Ryo Hisatsune.

Captain Snedeker?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Cam Young.

GARY YOUNG: Cam Young.

Captain Snedeker, your pick for match 20, please.

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Wyndham Clark.

GARY YOUNG: Wyndham Clark.

Captain Ogilvy?

GEOFF OGILVY: Tom Kim.

GARY YOUNG: Tom Kim.

Captain Ogilvy, your selection for match 21, please.

GEOFF OGILVY: Corey Conners.

GARY YOUNG: Corey Conners.

Captain Snedeker?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Justin Thomas.

GARY YOUNG: Justin Thomas.

Captain Snedeker, your selection for match 22.

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Scottie Scheffler.

GARY YOUNG: Scottie Scheffler.

Captain Ogilvy?

GEOFF OGILVY: Nico Echavarria.

GARY YOUNG: Nico Echavarria.

Captain Ogilvy, your selection for match 23, please.

GEOFF OGILVY: Sungjae Im.

GARY YOUNG: Sungjae Im.

Captain Snedeker?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Sam Burns.

GARY YOUNG: Sam Burns.

Captain Snedeker, your selection for match 24.

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Chris Gotterup.

GARY YOUNG: Chris Gotterup.

Captain Ogilvy?

GEOFF OGILVY: Christiaan Bezuidenhout.

GARY YOUNG: Christiaan Bezuidenhout.

Captain Ogilvy, your selection for match 25, please.

GEOFF OGILVY: Hideki Matsuyama.

GARY YOUNG: Hideki Matsuyama.

Captain Snedeker?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Collin Morikawa.

GARY YOUNG: Collin Morikawa.

Captain Snedeker, your selection for match 26, please.

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Patrick Cantlay.

GARY YOUNG: Patrick Cantlay.

Captain Ogilvy?

GEOFF OGILVY: Adam Scott.

GARY YOUNG: Adam Scott.

Captain Ogilvy, your selection for match 27.

GEOFF OGILVY: Si Woo Kim.

GARY YOUNG: Si Woo Kim.

Captain Snedeker?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Jackson Koivun.

GARY YOUNG: Jackson Koivun.

Captain Snedeker, your pick for match 28, please.

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Jacob Bridgeman.

GARY YOUNG: Jacob Bridgeman.

Captain Ogilvy?

GEOFF OGILVY: Min Woo Lee.

GARY YOUNG: Min Woo Lee.

Captain Ogilvy, your selection for match 29.

GEOFF OGILVY: Nick Taylor.

GARY YOUNG: Nick Taylor.

Captain Snedeker?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Russell Henley.

GARY YOUNG: Russell Henley.

That leaves us with the final match being for the United States, Xander Schauffele, and for the International Team, Ryan Fox.

Tomorrow's weather forecast calls for partly cloudy skies, low of 49 degrees, high of 71, with northeast winds. The first tee time will be 11:02 a.m.

Gentlemen, have a great evening. We'll see you all in the morning.

Q. Sneds, you said on the 18th green that you were really proud of the guys, but despite, quote, all of my mistakes. Could you just elaborate on what you meant by that?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: I tried to work my tail off to put these guys in the best situation possible, and I don't think I've done a very good job this week to be where we are right now. They look to me to put them in the best position where they're comfortable. I hold myself to a high standard. I don't think I've done the best job for them in that room.

They've given me everything I could possibly ask for, and I've just got to figure out ways to get these guys in better situations. I don't think I've held up my end of the bargain. The guys have done everything I've asked of them so far. I think we've got a great match for tomorrow. I think we've got a great lineup here. I'm excited about what the guys can bring tomorrow.

I hold myself to a high standard. I don't think I've put these guys in situations where I was trying to, I should say, or wanted to, to give them the comfort level they needed. I mean, there's several different ways, whether it's through matchups, whether it's through whatever. There's a thousand different ways I can think of right now. I've been honestly second guessing myself a lot to be in this situation.

I give the International Team a lot of credit. They played fantastic the last -- especially today. Yesterday they played great. I was really proud of the way our guys kind of hung in there today. It was tough. The golf course was tough, and the guys really hung in pretty well.

Q. Brandt, can I ask, was sitting Scottie in the afternoon kind of known before the day started, or did that happen as you were seeing how the match unraveled?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, it kind of unfolded. I had some ideas about Scottie puts the world on his shoulders, and he puts his whole team on his shoulders and takes a lot on. I was really trying to get him some energy for tomorrow. I know tomorrow is going to be a big day.

It's obviously a tough decision, really hard decision to sit the best player in the world and probably one of the best players I've ever seen in person. I just want to put him in the best situation tomorrow to go out there and have a great day and get some rest.

Q. Geoff, you saw a lot of red on the board early in the morning. What did you see from your team? Was that worrying at all, knowing how it went two years ago after Friday, having a little bit of a lull and then seeing the team down a little bit?

GEOFF OGILVY: I guess we kind of expected it. This is a pretty good team over here. The fans came out for them. The 1st tee was active. That's always going to give you a bit of energy if you're the home team. So we were up against it after nine holes, both sessions really.

Pretty proud of the team for fighting back. It's not easy to come back in a match when you're away from home. So it was a pretty impressive effort. We were very happy with 2½-1½ this morning because it looked pretty dire there for a little bit. But the boys, they did an amazing job, and this afternoon, similar sort of deal. To get out of that with a 2-2 was a really amazing result.

Min Woo and Foxy, I watched that match all day, and that was impressive golf. The closer they got to the end, the better they played. That's kind of fun for a captain to watch.

And Corey and Nick from 3-down to win on the last was an amazing effort. Yeah, it was tough. We had to sort of weather the storm early in both sessions, and it was amazing for the boys to sort of get us out of the day relatively unscathed.

Q. Brandt, I'm wondering, in your own misgivings, how much of those had to do with who was paired together, and how much do those have to do with the nature of the team itself? You said you haven't made them as comfortable necessarily as you would have liked. What does that mean to you, or what does that look like in terms of the comfort level?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: It just looks like trying to get these guys together, playing the kind of golf I know they're capable of. I feel like we had a really good practice session up here. I feel like I put these guys in a situation -- I don't know if I just can't quite -- I hold myself to a really high standard. I don't know how else to say it.

I feel like a team reflects their captain, and to this point, I haven't held up my end of the bargain. We've got to get our heads down tonight and come out and work hard tomorrow. I know what kind of person I am. I know how hard I've worked to be in this position. I know what kind of guys we have on that team. These guys are going to fight and claw tomorrow. They're going to go out there and give it everything they've got.

I'm so proud of them to be in the situation we're in. We've got a great game plan for tomorrow. These guys are studs. We're going to get them out there and get them going tomorrow.

Q. What is the game plan for tomorrow? What did you guys come into this room kind of wanting to fashion out of the pairings?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: The game plan for tomorrow? We led pretty heavy. We've got some studs up there at the top of the lineup that are going to go out there and hopefully put a bunch of red on the board, get this crowd behind us. We've got some studs throughout the whole lineup. We've got some guys in there to do what they're meant to do.

I know what kind of players we have in there. We've got a bunch of guys that have won a lot of golf on the PGA Tour. They've won major championships. They know what championship golf looks like. This is a championship type golf course. It's going to play tough tomorrow. They've got the mettle it takes to go out there and do the right things.

Q. Brandt, was there anything in the stats that led you to believe that the U.S. might be at a disadvantage on the par-3s because you guys have been kind of crushed on those holes?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: I didn't see anything massive in the stats that would give us a huge disadvantage. I feel like we have a pretty strong lineup top to bottom, great iron players. Sometimes you have weeks like that where those funny things pop up.

Q. Geoff, you know the course well. Is there anything that you were -- did you see that as an advantage for your team?

GEOFF OGILVY: To be honest, I only really learned that this afternoon on the 18th green. Somebody told me we've been doing the par-3s really well. I don't know, both teams have really good iron players, which I guess that's what it is. It's probably just an aberration.

My stats guys would argue there aren't aberrations, but I don't know. Maybe we'll debrief afterwards and work out if there was a difference, but we never saw anything like that before we came here.

Q. Brandt, in 2012 you were on the team that had a big lead and lost it. Are you going to talk to your team about it, bring that up?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: We've got some messaging we're going to work on here for these guys. These guys are really motivated. They are super competitive. They're super competitors, and that team is super close. They're great dudes in that room. I know what it's like to have a big lead here on Sunday. These are not the same group of guys. This is not the team I was on.

These guys are going to be prepared and ready to go tomorrow morning. We've got a really exciting lineup in my opinion. A lot can happen on these Sundays. We've seen it happen a lot over the last couple years. Our guys need to be ready. I think we're going to draw on what happened last year at the Ryder Cup and how close we came to that big comeback.

There's plenty of evidence that these things are never over. You've got to show up ready to go. I think our guys are chomping at the bit to get out there tomorrow.

Q. Brandt, when you talked to Scottie after the morning, was he surprised? How did he take it, your decision to not have him play?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Scottie took it great. I couldn't get to him before, so the TV people told him before I could get to him. Scottie is a team guy. He wants whatever is best for this team. He'd run through a wall for all those guys in that room. He took it like a champ.

I told him to get some rest, get some treatment, be out there. I feel like sometimes in years past we've kind of run him into the ground. So get out there tomorrow and kind of get after it.

Q. Two things. Geoff, for you, Nico won't have hit a meaningful shot since Thursday when he goes up against the world No. 1 tomorrow. What kind of message do you have for him?

GEOFF OGILVY: You've got a big task tomorrow. He's a guy who seems to love the big moments. He was pretty motivated when he found out he wasn't playing today. He's excited to go out tomorrow. He didn't know this was going to happen, so he's learned this now in the team room.

We hope he's really excited. It's a big opportunity for him to play the best player in the world, and we feel like he's ready for it.

Q. For both, your objective tomorrow like any other Cup is to fill the board with your color of scores. What boards are we talking about? I haven't seen any out there. Have you noticed that at all? How do you know whether one team is going big or not if there's not a ton of boards out there to look at?

GEOFF OGILVY: I've missed most of that, sorry. It was a great question.

BRANDT SNEDEKER: I've seen some boards out there. I think more than anything I want to hear the crowd going. The crowd can tell you what's going on. We had a great crowd today. I heard a lot of roars out there. It was exciting. I don't think we need boards; I think we need crowds.

Our message to our guys is all you can do is go win your one point. What's on the board doesn't matter. The only thing they're in charge of that's in front of their faces, the one point in front of their faces, the one match in front of their faces. If everybody does that, good things could be in front of us.

Q. It was boards, if you want to blame it on the jets. There's not a lot of actual boards that you can get a sense early or even early on the back nine what's going on. How do you communicate to your team what's actually going on?

GEOFF OGILVY: We use the radio.

Q. Tell guys in the middle of their match what's going on?

GEOFF OGILVY: No, we don't talk to the players. We pass on, like they ask, how's that match up in front going? You've usually got a pretty good sense when you're out there. You can kind of follow the group in front often. The field is kind of stacked up a little bit today. I was following Min Woo and Foxy, and they could see the group in front. Especially that stretch of 12, 13, 14, you can kind of see what's happening.

They ask us what's happening, and I guess we text the leaderboard on the phone if there's no board there, like we do. We're all communicating about what's going on in other matches. Some of the guys don't care like what the other matches are doing. They're focused on what they're doing, which is probably the right thing to do, to be honest.

Yeah, when we've got all red on the board and the boys don't see the leaderboard for a little bit and we tell them, hey, look, Corey and Nick got it back to square and they're like, oh really? That gives them a boost. When they ask, we let them know what's going on.

Q. Brandt, beyond your personal relationship, what led you to believe that Jacob Bridgeman and Russell Henley were going to be an ideal pairing for you?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Russell Henley is the 6th ranked player in the world. Jacob Bridgeman won last week on the PGA Tour. I think it's a pretty strong pairing. I know it didn't go the way those guys wanted. I thought they competed hard today. I'm sure there's a few shots that both those guys want back.

I mean, good Lord, guys, 6th player in the world and Jacob Bridgeman, those guys are studs.

Q. Is there anything in the numbers or anything that suggested they were beyond -- I mean, all 12 of your guys have great resumes. Is there anything that suggested for alternate shot they were good partners?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: I felt like they were. I felt like the numbers backed that up. I felt like, especially on this golf course, the way those guys can kind of hit fairways and put pressure on groups, I thought it was going to be a good matchup. I've still got tons of faith in those guys. Those guys are going to go out there tomorrow and play some great golf for us.

Q. Geoff, there's a couple schools of thought to take to this singles pairings back and forth that you guys do. I'm curious when Brandt gives you Scottie Scheffler pretty early on, like what's going through that deliberation process? Did you have like a general idea of players you wanted to use in certain spots just now?

GEOFF OGILVY: We had some thoughts, yeah. We would imagine that Brandt would have led pretty strong because in their situation he has to lead pretty strong. So we had some ideas.

You can kind of have a little bit of control with half of this pairings thing, but you can lose control pretty quick as the whole thing -- it's like a snake draft. That's interesting. We had a sort of general idea, but we just let it unfold as it goes.

Q. Geoff, Corey didn't come into this week with the best Presidents Cup record. Min Woo played the minimum number of matches two years ago in Montreal. I wonder what you saw out of both those guys that made you want to play them in all five sessions this week?

GEOFF OGILVY: Corey, he's an experienced Presidents Cup player and an incredibly reliable player who plays well pretty much every time he plays. He's pretty easy to pair in either format.

Min Woo, he loves this environment obviously. He's a far improved player from two years ago. He was a great player two years ago, but he's a really, really good player now, and he's had a bit more experience up on top of leaderboards. He's just been having a whole lot of fun. So when a guy's having a lot of fun, they're usually doing all right.

I think it's pretty easy. Like Brandt said before, it's pretty easy to come up with reasons to play Corey Conners and Min Woo Lee.

Q. Geoff, I know you guys have worked very hard on building a team identity. I'm curious what you feel like this specific team's identity is.

GEOFF OGILVY: They showed a lot of passion and fight today. I don't know, you guys are the ones who can decide what their identity is after this tournament. We know what we're about. The boys are very passionate about this team and this event. They really love this tournament. And they really enjoy spending time with each other and playing with each other.

Yeah, I don't know. It's a really good team.

Q. Brandt, you mentioned hearing the crowd pop of knowing how your team's been doing. How have you seen the fans get more invested throughout the week, and how important are they going to be towards getting off to a good start tomorrow?

BRANDT SNEDEKER: They've been great. They started off a little slow this week, and I thought they came out in droves today. I saw a lot of people out there. I saw a lot of cheering going on. We're going to need them tomorrow. We kind of dug ourself a hole here. We're going to need a special day tomorrow, and the only way to do that is to get the crowd going, get these guys making some putts, and get these people behind them.

They got loud out there several times today. I felt the juice. The guys felt the juice. We've just got to get them going early and keep them going. These guys are ready. I'm telling you, they're ready. This place has a weird history. Lots of big things have happened here. Can't wait to watch it all unfold tomorrow.

Q. Brandt, probably no surprise leading off with Cameron Young given his play, but could you speak to the pairing today of him and Chris. They were pretty strong.

BRANDT SNEDEKER: Yeah, they played great. It was kind of a pairing we had circled early on in this process of kind of putting those two guys together in alternate shot. They went out there today and played fantastic. They really played good. I can't thank those guys enough for what they gave today.

That's just such a strong pairing. The way those guys hit it, the way those guys played, they vibed today. They were having fun. Cam was making putts. Chris was hitting it a mile. It was fun to watch. Those guys have a long career in front of them in these things, and I'm glad we found that pairing.