Greg Norman put aside his differences with the PGA Tour and agreed to be captain of the International team at the Presidents Cup, joining Fred Couples of the United States as the first captains who have competed in the matches.
It will be held in October 2009 at Harding Park, a public course in San Francisco.
The announcement Tuesday shifts the Presidents Cup into a modern era of captaincy. Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player were captains at the last three competitions, and previous captains included Arnold Palmer, Ken Venturi, Hale Irwin, Peter Thomson and David Graham.
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His biggest issue will be finding a way to win.
The United States leads the series, 5-1-1, with the only International victory coming in 1998 in Australia. The tie came in South Africa in 2003, the first year Nicklaus and Player were captains together.
Tour officials then were looking at Couples and Norman as the next captains, but decided on Nicklaus and Player again in 2005 as a way to settle the tie. The Americans won the next year, then won again in 2007 at Royal Montreal.
Couples is one of the most popular players in golf and figures to be the quintessential players' captain.
I am not unhappy to see Nicklaus and Player pack it up, because I never cared for the above mentioned tie.
It will be interesting to see how their replacements handle the job.
I think they will do fine if they keep Jack's gentleman's approach. Somewhere along the line, integrity has diminished in today's society (in my opinion), much less so in professional golf. I could easily see the Shark pulling some shenanigan for his team.
I still hate when the US women made Annika hit her shot over. Technically it was correct, but integrity should have been to honor the shot, since nobody was moving or saying anything while she practiced the shot.
BTW...the President's cup tie was the best decision at that moment in time. I think I am in a minority, but that was awesome golf and I think they made the best call. Nobody needed to go home a loser that day.
I am not unhappy to see Nicklaus and Player pack it up, because I never cared for the above mentioned tie.
It will be interesting to see how their replacements handle the job.
Me too. Both Player and Nicklaus need to fade into the background, The presidents cup was more like a homage to these two rather than a biannual tourney of americas best vs. the rest of the world. Should have happened 10 years ago IMHO.
February 26th, 2008, 10:10 PM
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