Ponte Vedra Beach, FL (AP) – Jackson Koivun was added to the U.S. team for the Presidents Cup on Tuesday just three months after leaving Auburn, one of two newcomers captain Brandt Snedeker picked for an American team that hasn’t lost in 28 years.
Koivun, who won the 3M Open in his third start as a professional and qualified for the PGA Tour postseason in just five tournaments, is the first player since Jordan Spieth in 2013 to start a year without a tour card and play in the Presidents Cup.
“I’m just happy he took a chance on me. I’m going to give it my all,” Koivun said.
Snedeker also took Presidents Cup newcomer Jacob Bridgeman, who won at Riviera this year.
Left off the team was Ryan Gerard, the No. 22 player in the world who contended briefly at the British Open and finished third at the Tour Championship after sharing the 36-hole lead.
Snedeker said he and his assistants took a hard look at everyone in the mix before settling on Koivun, a 21-year-old who had such a sterling amateur career that he could have joined the tour through the PGA Tour University ranking system after his sophomore year.
“These decisions are always tough,” Snedeker said. “It comes down to your gut instincts on some of these things. You can look at stats all you want, past performances all you want, but you have to have a feeling. For some reason, I just had a gut feeling. We’ll see how that turns out.
“But I have full confidence he’s ready for the challenge.”
The six Americans who qualified on points were Scottie Scheffler, Cameron Young, U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark, Sam Burns, Morikawa and Russell Henley. Snedeker’s other picks were not surprising — Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas and Chris Gotterup, who has won three times this year.
International captain Geoff Ogilvy picked a pair of Canadians in Corey Conners and Nick Taylor. He also took Ryo Hisatsune, who turns 23 next week. It will be the first time since 1998 the International team has two Japanese players, with Hideki Matsuyama already earning one of the six automatic spots.
The Presidents Cup is Sept. 24-27 at Medinah, which has been entirely renovated by Ogilvy’s Australia-based golf course design company.
Ogilvy didn’t have the same depth from which to choose, and two of his options are South Africans who are European tour members — Casey Jarvis and Jayden Schaper, both of whom did their best work early in the season.
He went with Christiaan Bezuidenhout of South Africa, who has a 3-1-1 record in his two previous appearances; Cognizant Classic winner Nico Echavarria of Colombia; and Sungjae Im, a staple on the International team since his iron play wowed teammates at Royal Melbourne in 2019.
They join automatic qualifiers Si Woo Kim and Tom Kim of South Korea, Min Woo Lee of Australia and British Open champion Ryan Fox.
Also missing from the U.S. team was J.J. Spaun, the 2025 U.S. Open champion who went 2-1 in his Ryder Cup debut last year. Spaun withdrew from the Tour Championship with a nagging shoulder injury. Snedeker did not say whether that was a factor.
Ben Griffin was on the list of qualifiers all year until he was bumped out two weeks ago by Morikawa. Griffin finished at No. 8 in the standings, but he finished in the top 10 only once in his last nine tournaments.
Snedeker declined to offer reasons why players weren’t chosen, preferring to focus on the 12 players he brings to Medinah.
“I don’t think it’s fair to them or fair to the guys who did make it,” he said.
Such is the depth of the U.S. team it left off three players from the top 25 in the world — Spaun, Gerard and Griffin. The Internationals have only two from the top 25 in Si Woo Kim and Fox.
Bezuidenhout was 18th in the International standings, but Ogilvy said his low world ranking (No. 96) didn’t paint a full picture. The South African missed only three cuts, but had only two top 10s.
The International team standings is based on the world ranking.
“He hasn’t had a whole lot of high finishes this year, which is where you get all the world ranking points,” Ogilvy said. “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.”
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