Golf (finally) ditches the stupidest rule in sports

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Eyerolls. Laughter. Derision. You come to expect such things as a proud and parochial International Team fan ahead of the Presidents Cup. Captain Trevor Immelman and his players have heard it, as well. Apparently, they can’t win. BetMGM Sportsbook has the U.S. Team as a 6.5-point favorite in a 30-point contest, and if you listen to most pundits in the media center at Quail Hollow, it’s not enough. There’s even conjecture that the Americans could finish this off by Saturday. RELATED: Meet the teams Far from having his feelings hurt, Immelman and his players welcome the loose talk. “I let them read all the stuff that you guys are writing,” he said. “That’s where I start.” He knows the U.S. Team is 11-1-1 all-time, and unbeaten at home. At Liberty National in 2017 the 19-11 score probably flattered the Internationals. This year’s U.S. Team has 76 career PGA TOUR wins compared to 33 for the Internationals (22 of which come from just two players). The U.S. Team had 19 combined wins just last season (and Max Homa just won the new season opener) compared to five for the Internationals. What’s more, the average U.S. Team world ranking is 11.6 compared to a 48.9 for the Internationals. U.S. Captain Davis Love III has nine top-15 players, the most on any Presidents Cup team, while Immelman’s team has none. Eight Americans were ranked inside the top 15 of Strokes Gained: Total for the 2021-22 TOUR season compared to just one International. The list goes on and on and on. “It’s quite clear that we’re the underdogs,” Immelman said. “We generally have been in this competition over the years so it’s a tag that we’re used to. “There’s massive amounts of respect for the American team,” he added. “All of these guys compete week in and week out, and all of us know exactly how good they are.” And yet the matches are not played on paper, and underdogs do win. Nick O’Hern did beat Tiger Woods in his prime – twice. In 1983 a ragtag bunch of Australians took on the mighty U.S. in the Americas Cup yacht race in Newport, Rhode Island. The historic trophy had been in American hands for 132 years – the most dominant reign in sporting history – and yet the Australians won. The 1980 U.S. Olympic ice hockey team beat the mighty Soviet Union. And in 1990 a 42-to-1 underdog, Buster Douglas, KO’d undefeated, undisputed heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. All of which is to say Immelman and his men certainly don’t see losing as a foregone conclusion. They see this week as an epic opportunity to create history, as a win would rank up there with some of the biggest sporting achievements of all time. And that is a carrot worth chasing. “What excites us is the opportunity to see just how good we are,” Immelman said. The Internationals have eight first-timers in the team, another point some are using against them, but veterans Adam Scott and Hideki Matsuyama, and Immelman and his assistant captains, see it as a positive. They had seven newcomers in Melbourne and fed off their youthful exuberance. “It’s worked out quite well that we’ve got eight rookies here because they are just so excited,” Immelman said. “Everything is new and fresh, and they’re seeing everything for the first time. It’s kind of like Christmas morning when you can’t wait to open your presents up. That’s what I’m seeing from these kids walking into the team room for the first time.” Immelman has a blueprint to how his squad can prevail, but he’s keeping it to himself. One thing is for sure, though: He intends to unleash the rookies with a no-holds-barred mentality. The theory is to push the U.S. they’ll need to take risks and assert pressure early. It’s understood the players have been given the green light to throw caution to the wind. If they can have the U.S. players thinking about being part of losing the unlosable… they have a chance. “If you look at our record in this tournament and you look at our world rankings versus their world rankings, we have absolutely nothing to lose,” Immelman said. “We can go out there and play absolutely as free as we want, free as we can, and see if we can match up with the crazy good skills the Americans have.” It has the new guys counting down the minutes until go time. “There’s no reason to play safe or do anything like that,” said rookie Cam Davis of Australia. “We’re doing match play. We play aggressive. The golf course is set up to play aggressive. We’re really, really excited to get started. We all really want to win this thing. We all feel that all of us playing well, there’s more than a chance to get that done.” The International Team has momentum of a sort from 2019. Captain Ernie Els eradicated cliques and relied heavily on data to make pairings. He introduced a new shield logo and uniform to get behind. And it all worked for three days as Els’ team, with Immelman as an assistant, led heading to Singles for the first time since 2003 before the U.S. came back to win 16-14. “There was a clear line in the sand drawn for ’19 in our team,” said veteran Scott, who makes a record 10th appearance for the Internationals this week. “Things looked good there. So much changed. The direction of this team changed there, and that’s carried over. “Trevor has embraced that a lot and done an incredible job,” he continued. “We’re going to see that continue no matter what the result and I’m … optimistic that we have a shot this week. These guys are incredibly talented, and relatively unknown maybe compared to the stars of the United States, but they’ve now been given a platform to show off this week, and I hope they do.” Immelman has stats guru Duncan Carey dissecting the numbers, course setup and other factors to help provide him with optimal pairings and gameplan. Asked bluntly why he thinks his team can win, the captain didn’t hold back. “They’re all elite athletes,” he said, “and they got to elite level playing on the PGA TOUR. You don’t get here by accident, man, I can promise you. “You put a ton of work in,” he added. “You dedicate your life to it. You make sacrifice after sacrifice, investing time and money and blood, sweat, and tears to get to this level. You don’t just wake up one morning and get onto the PGA TOUR. These players are legit.” Legit they are. And they’re ready to show it.

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DETROIT — Troy Merritt took off his cap and briefly bowed his head to acknowledge a roaring crowd after the first ace of his PGA TOUR career. RELATED: Leaderboard | Inside the Field: John Deere Classic He didn’t get to enjoy the moment for long. Merritt’s hole-in-one gave him a three-shot lead, but he gave a stroke back on the next hole with a bogey and shot a 5-under 67 on Saturday. Joaquin Niemann took advantage of the opening to share the third-round lead at the Rocket Mortgage Classic. Niemann, who shared the 36-hole lead with Tom Lewis, pulled into a tie by two-putting from 46 feet at 17. He parred the final hole, the toughest one on Detroit Golf Club, for a 68. Hank Lebioda (66) and Cam Davis (67) were a stroke back, and Brandon Hagy (68) was another shot behind. Lewis (71) was among six players three shots back with a legitimate shot on the relatively short course with receptive greens. “The mindset will be make a few birdies, but don’t give any away,” Merritt said. “Make them work to come and get us and hopefully it’s good enough in the end.” Rickie Fowler (68) was in a pack of 10 five shots back, while first-rounder leader Davis Thompson (72) was six shots back. After opening with a course-record tying 63, Thompson has played the last 36 holes in 1 over with rounds of 73 and 72 The 35-year-old Merritt made his first hole-in-one on the PGA TOUR — from 219 yards with a 5-iron off one bounce — to give him a three-stroke advantage. Merritt was fired up, and the fans were, too, a year after no spectators were allowed to attend the 2020 Rocket Mortgage Classic due to the COVID-19 pandemic. “It’s awesome to have the fans back out here, whooping and hollering the good shots,” he said. “Commiserating with the bad shots and even hearing some of the comments you probably don’t want to hear.”” After his bogey, he closed with with six straight pars. Merritt, who is from Iowa, won his second PGA TOUR title at the 2018 Barbasol Championship. The next year, he missed two months of competition due to a surgery that removed a rib after he had blood clot that run from his chest to his left elbow. He entered this week with three top-10 finishes this year — including a pair of them in May — to put him within one of matching the most he has had in a year since making his PGA TOUR debut in 2010. Merritt moved atop the leaderboard quickly after starting his round Saturday at 9 under, one shot off the lead. He had four birdies through seven holes and lamented not having another, missing a 14-foot putt on the ninth hole. His ace on the par-3 11th put him at 6 under for the day and he may have had a hard time composing himself. “We had time to settle down before the next tee shot,” Merritt insisted. Merritt, though, missed the fairway to the right on the 493-yard, par-4 12th. Then, he was long on a chip and 14-foot putt, giving him a bogey and cutting his lead to a stroke. The 22-year-old Niemann had two birdies over his last five holes to put him in a position to win for the second time on TOUR. He became the first player from Chile to win on the PGA TOUR at The Greenbrier in 2019. “Everybody’s going to have their own moment and I had my moment pretty early,” said Niemann, who has four top-10 finishes this season.

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