Presidents Cup Opens at Medinah With Scheffler and Burns Leading Off

The 16th Presidents Cup began Thursday at Medinah Country Club, where the United States sent world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler out first as it seeks an 11th consecutive victory over an International team that has not won the event since 1998. The opening ceremony ran from noon to 12:30 p.m. Eastern, and the first of five fourball matches, pairing Scheffler and Sam Burns against Min Woo Lee and Sungjae Im, teed off at 12:35 p.m.

Captains Brandt Snedeker of the United States and Geoff Ogilvy of the International team announced their Thursday fourball pairings a day earlier, at a joint press conference. Snedeker chose to open with fourball, a format in which partners play their own ball and count the lower score on each hole, and will switch to foursomes, in which partners alternate shots, for Friday's session.

The Matchups and the Numbers

Five matches went off in twenty-minute intervals Thursday afternoon. Cameron Young and Xander Schauffele faced Hideki Matsuyama and Ryo Hisatsune in the second match, followed by Justin Thomas and 21-year-old rookie Jackson Koivun against Corey Conners and Nico Echavarria. Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa met Ryan Fox and Adam Scott in the fourth match, and the session closed with Chris Gotterup and Patrick Cantlay against the pairing of Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim, which CBS Sports had identified as the International side's strongest tandem. Russell Henley and Jacob Bridgeman sat out for the Americans; Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Nick Taylor sat out for the International team.

The tournament runs through Sunday and awards 30 points in all, two more than the Ryder Cup, with the first team to 15.5 points winning the cup outright. Saturday carries two sessions of four matches each, mixing fourball and foursomes, before 12 singles matches decide the outcome Sunday. The United States has won the opening session in eight of the last nine editions and gone on to win the cup every time, including a 5-0 sweep of Thursday's fourballs in 2024.

A Series the Americans Have Dominated

The Presidents Cup, first played in 1994, has produced one of the most lopsided rivalries in professional team golf. The United States has won 13 of the 15 previous editions, with a single International victory, 20.5-11.5 at Royal Melbourne in 1998, and one tie, 17-17 at Fancourt in South Africa in 2003. The Americans' most recent win came in 2024 at Royal Montreal, an 18.5-11.5 result that extended their current streak to ten straight titles.

Medinah, a private club roughly 25 miles northwest of Chicago, is hosting the event for the first time. Course No. 3 underwent a renovation completed in 2023 that added dozens of bunkers, enlarged the greens by roughly 40 percent and rerouted several closing holes toward the property's lakes, changes the club has said were made partly with match-play theater in mind.

Who Is on the Line

The rosters carry their own storylines into the week. The United States team qualified automatically through Scheffler, Young, Clark, Henley, Burns and Morikawa, with Snedeker adding Gotterup, Schauffele, Thomas, Cantlay, Bridgeman and Koivun as captain's picks; Koivun, Gotterup and Bridgeman are all playing in their first Presidents Cup. On the International side, Si Woo Kim, Matsuyama, Fox, Tom Kim, Lee and Scott qualified on ranking points, joined by picks Sungjae Im, Echavarria, Conners, Taylor, Bezuidenhout and Hisatsune.

Scott, 46, is playing in his 12th consecutive Presidents Cup since his debut in 2003, tying Phil Mickelson's record for appearances and giving him a career match record of 20-28-6, the most losses by any International player in the event's history. He has never been on a winning team. Scheffler, despite ranking No. 1 in the world for most of the past two years, carries a combined Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup record of 6-11-4, a disparity between his individual and team-event results he addressed directly this week.

Reaction

Asked about the gap between his individual dominance and his record in team play, Scheffler pointed to his own competitiveness rather than any tactical explanation. "As a hyper-competitive person, I think sometimes I can probably try too hard," he said, adding that a more measured approach might serve him better: "For me, I think just trying less would be really important. It's just one of those things that's a lot easier said than done."

Scott, who has watched the Americans close out close matches repeatedly over more than two decades of trying, framed the week in terms larger than his own record.

"If we can get across the line and win, I think it's going to change the whole perception of the event."

Snedeker, explaining his choice to pair Thomas with Koivun, said the veteran was a natural fit for a rookie who has adjusted quickly to the team environment. Burns, teamed with his close friend Scheffler in the leadoff match, called it "a comfortable pairing for us," noting the two spend much of their time on tour playing practice rounds together, according to CBS Sports' coverage of the Thursday pairings.

What Happens Next

Friday's foursomes session follows the same five-match rotation Snedeker set up for the week, with new pairings expected to be announced after Thursday's matches conclude. Saturday's two four-match sessions will determine how much cushion, if any, either side carries into Sunday's dozen singles matches, the session that has decided the closest editions of the event, including the 2003 tie. NBC and Golf Channel are broadcasting the tournament through the weekend, with Sunday's singles determining whether the United States extends its streak to eleven straight titles or the International team wins for the first time since Bill Clinton's first term.