Davis Love III would love to see a preeminent mixed event in golf’s future. Just not at the Presidents Cup.
The biennial match between the Americans and Internationals will be held for the 14th time when the two squads meet later this month at Quail Hollow, yet the Internationals have won just one of the previous meetings. Moreover the Internationals' depth and firepower took a massive hit with a number of departures to LIV Golf. With an American blowout possibly on the horizon—and with the LIV problem not going anywhere—the question has been raised if the Presidents Cup should add the top women in the game to make it a more competitive match.
But speaking Wednesday after announcing his final selections for the American team, Love doesn’t see such a change happening.
“Well, I love the Solheim Cup, and I love watching that. So they probably would not want us to come play in theirs,” Love said. “So I think the Presidents Cup stands on its own and has been great.”
It’s not exactly an apropos comparison, as the Solheim Cup is the women’s equivalent of the Ryder Cup pitting Europe against the United States. Given the international dominance in the women’s game—eight of the top 10 players in the Rolex Rankings are from South Korea, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Japan and Thailand—it could cancel out the talent disparity that currently exists between the men.
Nevertheless, despite maintaining he liked how the Presidents and Solheim Cups “are going right now” the former PGA champ did welcome a joint men-and-women’s tournament in the near future.
“I would love to see, and it's talked about a lot, especially since everything's up for grabs right now in the tour schedule and the game of golf,” Love continued. “I would love to see the mixed team event come back. I would love to see some sort of event like this that was mixed teams. Billy Andrade and Brad Faxon did that in their CVS event and it was a lot of fun. So I like to see something different.”
As for that talent disparity, at least on paper, for this year’s Presidents Cup, Love said he felt “bad for the game of golf” that LIV has dominated so much of the sport’s conversation.
“We've got how many ever days until we actually tee off and -- or they are playing a great event this week [BMW PGA Championship] and the story is, you know, Billy Horschel and Jon Rahm wishing guys weren't there,” Love said. “That's sad. I feel bad for all of us, really.
“But Trevor has a job to do, and that's to take 12 guys in there ready to play, and he's focused on that. We've talked about it a lot. I have to get these 12 guys that are dying to play for Team USA ready to play, and it will be a great show once Thursday starts. So yeah, it's just a—Tim Finchem always used the word, it's a distraction. This is a big, big distraction away from what we really should be talking about.”
The 2022 Presidents Cup begins on Sept. 22. The United States has won the last eight matches.
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