International team captain’s assistant Geoff Ogilvy said defeating the U.S. at this week’s Presidents Cup would be “the pinnacle of the sport.”
“We don’t hate the other team,” the Australian told reporters Wednesday during a media session with all nine assistants at the Royal Montreal Golf Club in Quebec, Canada.
“… We want to win because they’re the hardest team to beat in the world. It’s the pinnacle of sport. To beat the U.S. Team in an event like this is the pinnacle of the sport,” said Ogilvy, joined by Ernie Els, Trevor Immelman, Camilo Villegas and Shigeki Maruyama on captain Mike Weir’s staff.
The 15th edition of the Presidents Cup gets underway Thursday with five fourball (better ball) matches.
The Americans are 12-1-1 in the all-time series and have never lost on home soil, with the International team’s lone win coming in 1998 at Royal Melbourne.
“This time, I feel we’ve got a new identity, and the guys have really bought into that,” Els said. “We’re on a path to ending our drought, hopefully this week.”
Ogilvy addressed the challenge of beating a U.S. squad featuring World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and No. 2 Xander Schauffele.
“If we can bring a group of guys from around the world and come and beat them, I can’t imagine anything better than that,” he said. “So it’s more of a we want to win because of the respect we have for the other team, rather than a hate.”
U.S. captain’s assistant Justin Leonard said the Americans have history on their side but are not taking anything for granted.
“Ultimately the goal is just to get these guys in the right frame of mind, understand kind of their language and how they like to hear information, things like that,” Leonard said.
“This is a different group of assistants from what the norm has been the last few years. It’s also some different players as well. So a little bit of turnover, but I think in talking with past assistants and picking their brains, things like that, we’ve got a good handle on who needs what.”
In addition to Leonard, captain Jim Furyk’s assistants are Brandt Snedeker, Stewart Cink and Kevin Kisner.
“We love these guys,” Snedeker said. “We’ve got a great team of guys. They’re all super close friends. That’s one thing I’ve been shocked about is how close these guys are. So we as captains are just trying to let them go out and play the kind of golf we know they’re capable of and have some fun along the way while they’re doing it.”
–Field Level Media
