International Team vs Team USA – 2026 Presidents Cup Preview at Medinah CC

Championship golf returns to the Chicago area for the 16th edition of the Presidents Cup at Medinah Country Club’s Course No. 3.  The biennial match play competition features a formidable and heavily favored United States squad captained by Brandt Snedeker against the International team led by Geoff Ogilvy. While the historical dominance of Team USA in this event is undeniable, this particular iteration introduces a fascinating layer of intrigue with Ogilvy spending the last few years completely transforming the very turf on which the matches will be contested.

Medinah is one of the most recognizable layouts in the Chicago area and recently underwent a major renovation overseen by Ogilvy’s OCM Golf. The two year project included a new routing, larger greens, wider fairways and expanded bunkering, with the course reopening in the summer of 2024.

Medinah has hosted legendary moments, including Tiger Woods staring down Sergio Garcia in 1999 and the dramatic European comeback during the 2012 Ryder Cup. However, the venue the players step onto this fall will look and play fundamentally differently than the course of the past.

The competition features 12 players on each team and 30 matches over four days, with four ball and foursomes making up the team sessions before 12 singles matches on Sunday. The first team to reach 15.5 points wins the Cup. The U.S. enters the week having won the last 10 Presidents Cups, while the International team will attempt to claim the Cup for the first time since 1998.

Format and Scoring

The Presidents Cup uses a match play format instead of the typical stroke play format used each week on the PGA Tour. Match play is a form of competition where a player (or players) plays directly against an opponent (or opponents) in a head-to-head match. You win a hole by completing it in the fewest strokes, and you win a match when you win by more holes than remain to be played.

The Presidents Cup is a four-day competition. There will be five “Foursome” matches played on Thursday followed by five “Four-ball” matches on Friday. Saturday features four “Foursome” matches on Saturday morning followed by four “Four-ball” matches in the afternoon. The event finishes with 12 singles matches on Sunday. With 30 matches in total, and each being worth one point, it will take 15.5 points to win the Cup.

FOUR-BALL

Each member of a two-man team plays his own ball, so four balls are in play on every hole. Each team counts the lowest of its two scores on each hole, and the team whose player has the lowest score wins the hole. If the low scores are tied, the hole is halved.

FOURSOMES

Each two-man team plays one ball per hole with the players taking turns until each hole is complete. Players alternate hitting tee shots, with one leading off on odd-numbered holes, and the other hitting first on even-numbered holes. The team with the low score on each hole wins that hole. If their scores are tied, the hole is halved.

SINGLES

Each match features one player from each team. The player with the lower score on each hole wins that hole. If their scores are tied, the hole is halved. Players can concede a hole to their opponent if they have no chance of halving the hole.

Differing from the Ryder Cup in which the U.S. team plays against Europe, the Presidents Cup features the U.S. team against an “International” team, which specifically excludes players from Europe. It is held every two years, in non-Ryder cup years. The U.S. has dominated the series 12-1-1 with the sole International victory coming in 1998 in Australia.

Each of the teams is comprised of 12 players. Both teams had six qualifiers determined by a points list based on performance. Both captains (Brandt Snedeker for the U.S. and Geoff Ogilvy for the Internationals) also had six “captain” picks.

Below is the overall “Tale of the Tape” for the Presidents Cup. It includes career match play records, Official World Golf Rankings, and Strokes Gained Total per round.

Tale of the Tape

The Course – Medinah CC No. 3

Medinah Country Club’s No. 3 Course will play 7,548 yards as a par 70 for the 2026 Presidents Cup, putting it firmly among the longer championship setups players will see. For decades, Medinah built its reputation as a classic American championship layout designed to punish errors. The design philosophy focused on narrow fairways, thick rough, and elevated features meant to restrict low scoring. That identity reached a breaking point during the 2019 BMW Championship, when Justin Thomas tore the course apart with a third-round 61 on his way to winning at 25 under par. It became evident that modern distance and equipment had rendered the old defenses obsolete.

In response, Medinah hired the Australian design firm OCM Golf, led by Geoff Ogilvy, Mike Cocking, and Ashley Mead. The course closed in late 2022 and reopened in the summer of 2024 after a radical overhaul that rejected the trend of simply adding more length. Instead, OCM restored the Golden Age scale of Tom Bendelow’s original 1928 layout.

The project removed large numbers of trees, widened and shifted fairways, enlarged and recontoured greens, rebuilt the bunkering on a much larger scale and substantially rerouted the closing six holes. The goal was to recover the scale and strategic character of the early Bendelow course rather than continue the modern pattern of narrowing fairways, thickening rough and pushing tees farther back.

That change is most obvious off the tee. Every fairway was widened, with OCM describing landing areas in the 40-, 50- and even 60-yard range. The sixth reaches more than 60 yards wide in places after previously measuring roughly 25 yards. Those numbers do not make Medinah automatically easy to drive, because much of the width is deliberately asymmetrical. The safest side of a fairway often produces a worse approach angle, while the ideal position may sit next to a bunker, water or out-of-bounds line.

The course sits on broad, rolling Midwestern terrain that became much more visible after the tree-removal program. The old version often felt confined despite the scale of the property; the new one exposes ridges, valleys and long views across the site. OCM also tried to reconnect the course to the more open oak-savannah and prairie character of its early years, particularly through the southern portion of the property. Broad areas of long fescue now replace some of the maintained turf and dense tree cover that previously framed the holes.

Bunkering is another major change. The total increased from roughly 70 to around 100, but placement matters more than the raw number. Many older bunkers had been positioned at predictable distances and built up for visibility. The new hazards are generally cut into natural rises, have rougher and more irregular edges and appear at a wider variety of distances. Fairway bunkers often occupy desirable lines rather than merely catching poor drives, while greenside bunkers sit much tighter to the putting surfaces.

The greens were also enlarged and reshaped, with much more internal movement than the previous surfaces. OCM wanted different hole locations to create materially different approach shots, so the putting surfaces now work in conjunction with the angle of the fairway rather than simply serving as small targets at the end of each hole. Short-grass surrounds and slopes provide more recovery options around many greens, allowing balls to be played along the ground instead of automatically leaving a thick-rough recovery.

The agronomy remains consistent with a cool-season Chicago parkland course, with bentgrass-based putting surfaces and fairways and extensive fescue now incorporated into the outer rough and native areas. The renovation also included significant drainage and approach work designed to keep the ground firmer so contours can influence shots into and around the greens. The course should therefore play less like the soft, aerial test seen in 2019 and more like a layout where bounce, rollout and preferred angles matter. 

Lake Kadijah remains the most prominent natural hazard, but it is used very differently. Previous versions repeatedly asked players to hit directly across the lake on similar par 3s. OCM removed that repetition and rebuilt the closing stretch so the water is encountered from several directions. The new 13th runs alongside the lake rather than simply across it, the 16th plays diagonally over the water, the 17th crosses back from the opposite direction and the rebuilt 18th occupies a restored corridor beyond the lake.

The 16th is the signature risk-reward hole. It is a short par 4 played diagonally across Lake Kadijah, with players able to choose how much water to challenge from the tee. A conservative line leaves more distance, while an aggressive carry dramatically shortens the hole. From forward tees, the green can be brought within range for the longest players, making it particularly well suited to match play. A player who sees an opponent in trouble may lay back; one who needs to win the hole can attack the lake and try to reach the green.

The holes around it should create similar volatility. The short 13th can be set anywhere from roughly 120 to 153 yards, allowing the setup to change substantially from day to day. The 17th can stretch beyond 200 yards across the lake to an elevated green with water left and four bunkers around the target. The rebuilt 18th is a 487-yard par 4, nearly 50 yards longer than its predecessor, restoring a much stronger finishing hole.

For the Presidents Cup, the routing will be altered specifically to bring those holes into more matches. Play begins on the club’s fifth hole, making Medinah’s 16th, 17th and 18th the 12th, 13th and 14th holes of the match. The club’s first and second holes then become Presidents Cup Nos. 15 and 16. The change was made because fewer than 40 percent of Presidents Cup matches historically reach the 17th hole, so moving the lake-side stretch forward greatly increases the chance that the most strategic holes decide matches.

That setup should suit the redesign particularly well. Medinah still has plenty of length and remains a demanding championship course, but its primary defenses are now angles, water, out-of-bounds, strategic bunkering, long fescue, contoured greens and the consequences of choosing the wrong side of wide fairways. Instead of asking players to hit the same conservative shot repeatedly, the course gives them room and then makes them decide how much of that room they want to use. The result should be a much more volatile and strategic version of Medinah than the one used for the 2012 Ryder Cup.