Our coverage of the 2024 Presidents Cup can be found here. As the matches get underway we will be adding live event and match-level probabilities, as well as a live strokes-gained page.

The Venue

The Blue Course at Royal Montreal most recently hosted the Canadian Open in 2014, and that’s the only tournament we are using to form our course fit estimates. Here’s its radar plot:

As you would expect from the names at the top of that Canadian Open leaderboard, Royal Montreal places less emphasis on driving distance and slightly more on driving accuracy. With only one year of data it’s hard to draw strong conclusions, which might be why its profile doesn’t differ that much from the average tour course.

Course fit is something we'll keep in mind when thinking about our captain’s picks below, potentially using it as a tiebreaker.

Captain's Picks

Both the US and International teams will be making their six captain’s picks next Monday, after the completion of the Tour Championship. For each team we divided the relevant players into tiers and highlighted who we would pick if given captain's duties.

Most of our rationale comes from our qualification table. It displays the current points standings along with 6 alternative metrics of performance: DG Rank, OWGR Rank, and 3-month, 6-month, 1-year, and 2-year strokes-gained averages. Note that for the Internationals, Points=OWGR. When we refer to top "X" (e.g. top 12), this is with LIV golfers excluded (except for the LIV-specific section).

Team USA

1. Auto Qualifiers
The first five automatic qualifiers would make the US top 12 (excluding LIV) using any of the 6 alternative metrics. Theegala, however, would only make it using the OWGR and 1-year SG.

2. Locks
They are 7-9 in points and make our top 12 based on any metric. Barring disaster at the Tour Championship, they will all make our team. As for whether they'll make Furyk’s team, Henley is the main uncertainty: he has no Team USA experience, and he looks best based on the SG metrics (which Captain Furyk might value less). However, Henley is also 14th in the OWGR, making him hard to overlook. If Henley isn’t picked we may consider taking our website down in protest.

3. Solid Options (a)
3 of these 4 players will very likely make our team. Horschel has the strongest case despite being just 17th in points. He makes it on 4 metrics in our table (and is also the first guy out using OWGR), and his low points rank can be partly attributed to missing out on most of the points-heavy signature events in 2024. Bradley is our second pick from this group–he is 10th in points, and makes it on DG rank, OWGR, and 3-month SG. He also has the hot hand coming off his win at the BMW. As things stand now (one day prior to the Tour Championship), Harman would get our final pick. He is 11th in points and has had a solid season to back up his major breakthrough in 2023. Thomas is our 13th man. If he plays really well at East Lake this week we might give him the nod over Harman.

4. Solid Options (b)
The title says it all: McCarthy and Thompson are both solid options with a couple of data points in their favor, but we don’t think a strong case can be made to pick them over anyone in the tier above.

5. Young Guns
Bhatia doesn’t make the top 12 by any metric, but he’s 14th in points, 14th by OWGR, and 13th by 6-month SG. At just 22 years old, he has a lot of upside and will likely play on future American teams. If Bhatia puts together a special week at East Lake, he could steal the last spot on our squad. Luke Clanton has had a historically great amateur season: he registered a T2, 5th, and T10 in 6 PGA Tour starts and has vaulted all the way up to 5th in our all-time amateur rankings. He is in the top 12 using 3-month or 6-month SG, but Clanton just isn’t pickable given his lack of experience in the pro game. The future is very bright for this 20-year-old.

6. Tough Phone Call
Homa is 12th in the points standings, and would make the top 12 based on his OWGR and 2-year SG, but his 3-month SG is -0.5, and his DG rank has plummeted all the way to 84th (38th among eligible Americans). With Royal Montreal likely favouring driving accuracy—an area of the game Homa has struggled with this year—it makes sense to leave him off the team and hope for a rebound in time for Bethpage 2025.

7. Honourable Mentions
Kirk is 13th on the points list, but this was mainly driven by his win at the Sentry to begin the year and a couple other high finishes in big events. He isn't close to making the top 12 by any other metric. Young remains a promising young player, but he has had a mediocre season and isn’t a great course fit for Royal Montreal.

8. LIV Exclusions
The only LIV player who would make our top 12 by any metric is Bryson DeChambeau (who would make it using any of the 6 alternative metrics).

International Team

1. Auto Qualifiers
Excluding LIV golfers, all of the auto Qs would make the top 12 using any metric.

2. Locks
Both Conners and Bezuidenhout are in the top 12 by any metric. Bezuidenhout is the Russell Henley of the Internationals–rates very highly using SG metrics without the wins to back it up–but it would be very surprising if Weir doesn't put the South African on the team.

3. Solid Options (a)
There is a pretty clear divide between our A options and B options when using strokes-gained: Hughes, the worst A option player, is 51st in our rankings while Cameron Davis, the best B option player, is ranked 73rd. This works out to a skill difference of 0.16 strokes/round, a gap we can't justify overlooking. Pendrith, Kim, and Lee all make it into our top 12 using 5 of the 6 available metrics (also recall that points=OWGR for the International team), while Hughes makes it on 3 metrics and would be our last pick.

4. Solid Options (b)
These players all rank well by OWGR/points, but are a step below the players in the tier above when it comes to SG. Cam Davis is the most likely to be picked by Weir as he is 8th in their official standings and had a strong T5 finish at last week's BMW, but it's harder to justify Taylor (12th in points, 120th in DG) or Hadwin (13th in points, 81st in DG) despite it being a home game for them.

5. Honourable Mentions
Van Rooyen was a strong contender to make this team earlier in the year but he's been inconsistent of late. Lawrence would make the top 12 using 3-month SG, and he had an impressive showing at the Open Championship, but ultimately doesn't have the body of work to be seriously considered.

6. LIV Exclusions
Niemann and Oosthuizen would make the top 12 using any non-OWGR metric, while Smith would only make it by DG rank, 6-month, and 2-year SG. However, Smith plays well in the biggest events and would make our team if eligible. Dean Burmester and Marc Leishman would be in the conversation for picks, while Carlos Ortiz might have an outside shot.

Tipping the Scales

We’ve also added a summary of every Presidents Cup played since its inception in 1994. Since 2000–which is when we started to have decent data on almost all participants–the average DG ranking of players on the US and International teams are 17.9 and 41.7, respectively. The best US team (again, post-2000) by DG rank was in 2013 at 11.8 (the US won 18.5-15.5), while the best International team was in 2003 at 24.3 (which ended in a tie after the epic Woods/Els playoff).

This year, using our captain’s picks to fill out the rosters, Team USA’s average DG rank is currently 17.8, while the Internationals' average rank is 27.8. If Mike Weir decides to go with the higher OWGR-ranked (and lower DG-ranked) picks in Cam Davis and Nick Taylor, the Internationals' average rank could go as high as 35.4. Therefore, despite not being able to pick a few strong LIV players, the International side should field an above-average team this year.