2026 Presidents Cup pool picks: match-play strategy for a 24-player field at Medinah

The Presidents Cup runs September 24-27, 2026, at Medinah Country Club's No. 3 course outside Chicago. Brandt Snedeker captains the US team and Geoff Ogilvy captains the International team. Both rosters were finalized September 1 with six captain's picks each, and the Golf Pools Pro live field shows all 24 players from the PGA Tour field source.

The format is match play, not stroke play. Five four-ball matches open the week Thursday, five foursomes matches follow Friday, Saturday brings four-ball in the morning and foursomes in the afternoon, and all 24 players contest 12 singles matches on Sunday. That is 30 points total, and 15.5 wins the Cup.

One fun wrinkle: Medinah No. 3 was redesigned in 2023 and 2024 by OCM, the design firm co-founded by Geoff Ogilvy himself. The renovation widened fairways, enlarged the greens, and added prairie-style bunkering and fescue. The International captain literally built the venue his team has to win on.

There is no cut this week. Nobody goes home Friday, and all 24 players are on the course for Sunday singles. If your pool strategy usually leans on cut safety, park that instinct until the next stroke-play event.

The bigger trap is benching. Ten players compete in the Thursday matches and ten in the Friday matches, which means captains sit players out. A pick who rides the bench Thursday or Friday earns nothing those days. You are picking golfers and trusting the captains to play them.

Scoring also looks different. Players earn points for match wins and half-points for halved matches instead of piling up birdies. Expect the Golf Pools Pro leaderboard to move when matches finish rather than stroke by stroke, with the biggest jump Sunday afternoon when all 12 singles matches are live.

Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, and Justin Thomas are the safest anchors. All three have strong Presidents Cup records: Schauffele and Cantlay are 10-4-0 in their careers, and Thomas is 10-3-2. Match play rewards proven point-collectors, and captains trust players with this history.

Scottie Scheffler is still the first name on most cards, and that is fine. But here is the nuance worth knowing: his Presidents Cup record is just 3-5-1. He is the best player in the world in stroke play, and he went 1-2-1 in 2024. Use him, just know you are paying a popularity price for a player whose Cup results have not matched his ranking.

Collin Morikawa (6-2-0) and Russell Henley (3-1-0) round out the proven US core. On the International side, Hideki Matsuyama and Adam Scott are the veteran anchors, and Si Woo Kim arrives as the top International points qualifier. If you want at least one International player who feels like an anchor, start there.

The International roster is where you find separation. Sungjae Im, Corey Conners, Tom Kim, and Min Woo Lee all have real upside, and fewer entrants will stack Internationals knowing the US has won 13 of 15 Cups, including the last ten straight. If the International team finally breaks through, a card loaded with Im and Tom Kim could leap the field on Sunday.

Cameron Young is the interesting US middle pick. He qualified second on the US points list behind Scheffler, so he is clearly playing well, but he will not carry the same ownership as the Cup veterans. Wyndham Clark and Sam Burns are similar: strong seasons, less Cup pedigree, less attention.

The rookies are the deep-pool plays. Chris Gotterup and Jacob Bridgeman earned their spots with breakout seasons, and Jackson Koivun is the boldest pick on the board: a 21-year-old junior at Auburn taken 48th on the points list. One of them will likely be a Sunday story. Ryan Fox, Nico Echavarria, Ryo Hisatsune, Nick Taylor, and Christiaan Bezuidenhout are the International role players for larger pools.

Scheffler is the obvious one, covered above. A 3-5-1 record across two Cups is a real sample, and if the US cruises, his point total may matter less than people expect. In a small pool, take him anyway. In a larger one, Schauffele or Cantlay gives you the same US-team exposure with a better match-play track record.

The rookies scare me in foursomes specifically. Alternate shot punishes inexperience, and Gotterup, Bridgeman, and Koivun have never played a Cup match. If your scoring counts every pick, one rookie who sits Thursday, loses Friday foursomes, and gets buried could sink an entry.

Finally, be careful with anyone you expect to be benched early. Captains protect their foursomes pairings, and some players do not appear until Saturday. If a name feels like a Friday-afternoon sit, that pick is spending most of the week earning zero.

With only 24 players in the field, a standard Open Picks card of 12 picks is literally half the field, so the decisions get sharper rather than wider. A balanced starting point: take four or five of the proven US match players (Schauffele, Cantlay, Thomas, Morikawa, Henley), add Scheffler if the pool is small, then take two or three Internationals like Matsuyama, Im, Tom Kim, or Conners.

Fill the rest with your risk budget. Bigger pool and want a different card? Push into Young, Clark, Burns, or a rookie. Smaller pool and just want to hang around the top? Stay US-heavy and let the favorites carry you. The International stack is the move that wins a big pool if Saturday goes sideways for the home team.

Hosts should open entries now and set the lock before Thursday's first tee time, because the Presidents Cup starts match play on Thursday, earlier in the week than a usual pro-am Wednesday feel. With a 24-player field, also think about your format: a 12-pick default leaves only 12 players on the board, so consider whether you want fewer picks required or a wider counted-picks setup before you send the invite link.

If you run Tiered Picks or Clubhouse Chaos, the groupings are unusual this week because half the field is US and half is International. Grouping by world ranking mixes the teams, which is probably what you want; grouping by team country would make every group lopsided in ownership.

Entrants should lock their card before Thursday morning and remember that benchings are announced by session. Your picks cannot react to who plays Thursday, so build a card that survives a benching or two: proven Cup players first, rookies and role players in the slots you can afford to lose.