Presidents Cup captains Fred Couples and Nick Price made their captain’s picks today to fill out the rosters on the USA and International teams. USA team captain Fred Couples selected Webb Simpson and Jordan Spieth; International team captain Nick Price added Marc Leishman of Australia and Brandon de Jonge of Zimbabwe.
Many in the golfing world was urging for Couple’s to select Jordan Spieth who has played very well during his rookie campaign. He has selected youth over experience as the 20-year-old Spieth started this season with no status but outplayed and out-earned other golfers thought to be under consideration this year, including Jim Furyk, Bubba Watson and Dustin Johnson. Spieth will become the youngest American to play in the Presidents Cup, while Furyk (who has the all-time best Presidents Cup winning percentage) will miss his first tournament since 1998. Spieth is currently ranked 8th in the FedEx Cup standings and was also the youngest player to win on Tour in 82 years at the John Deere Classic in a playoff over Zach Johnson and David Hearn. He also had a T4 finish at this past week’s Deutsche Bank Championship after a final round 62! Even players on the International side were glad to see Spieth make the team!
@JordanSpieth congrats kid. You completely deserve it. However, my game face is now on, you just can't tell because of this ridic beard…
— Graham DeLaet (@GrahamDeLaet) September 4, 2013
Simpson and Spieth will join Tiger Woods, Brandt Snedeker, Phil Mickelson, Matt Kuchar, Jason Dufner, Keegan Bradley, Steve Stricker, Bill Haas, Hunter Mahan and Zach Johnson on the United States team. They will face an International (non-European) team of Leishman, de Jonge, Adam Scott, Jason Day, Charl Schwartzel, Ernie Els, Louis Oosthuizen, Hideki Matsuyama, Branden Grace, Graham DeLaet, Richard Sterne and Angel Cabrera. Since the Presidents Cup inception in 1994, the USA team is 7-1-1. This is the 10th Presidents Cup and will begin on October 3 at Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio. Though we’re looking forward to it, we’re also looking towards the 2015 Presidents Cup being held at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club in South Korea!
Source: The Presidents Cup
