Gary Woodland is the newest member of the coveted top 8 in the U.S. Presidents Cup standings after he held off two-time defending champion Brooks Koepka to win the U.S. Open by three strokes at Pebble Beach Golf Links for his fourth career PGA TOUR victory and first major title. The win vaulted Woodland from No. 12 to No. 7 in the standings as he looks to represent the United States in the Presidents Cup for the first time in his 11-year career on the PGA TOUR.
The Presidents Cup will return to Melbourne, Australia and The Royal Melbourne Golf Club for the third time, December 9-15, 2019, when the International Team, led by Captain Ernie Els, will take on the U.S. Team led by Captain Tiger Woods.
Prior to the win, Woodland was already in contention for a Presidents Cup bid after recording two runner-up results and five other top-10 finishes in 17 starts during the 2018-19 PGA TOUR Season. The victory was Woodland’s first since the 2018 Waste Management Phoenix Open.
“I’ve worked hard my whole life. I’ve been surrounded by amazing people and I always just wanted to be successful,” Woodland said. “I didn’t know what it was, what I was going to do. I fell in love with golf, and it’s transcended to today.”
Woodland is one of four players in the current top 8 (Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Bryson DeChambeau) who are hopeful to make their Presidents Cup debuts in 2019. The top 8 on both teams through Aug. 18 (following the BMW Championship) will officially qualify for the Presidents Cup.
Elsewhere on the U.S. Team standings, Brooks Koepka claimed the No. 1 spot after falling just short of winning a historic third consecutive U.S. Open. Koepka traded places in the standings with good friend and former Presidents Cup partner Dustin Johnson, who finished T35 at Pebble Beach to drop to second in the standings.
Meanwhile, 25-year-old Schauffele is one step closer to booking his first trip to a Presidents Cup after a T3 finish moved him from No. 5 to No. 3 in the standings. The 2017 PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year has quietly delivered an impressive season highlighted by two quality wins at the WGC-HSBC Champions and Sentry Tournament of Champions as well as a T2 at the Masters. In three career U.S. Open starts, Schauffele has finished T5-T6-T3.
U.S. Captain Woods carded a 2-under 69 on Sunday for his lowest round of the week to finish T21 but fell one spot in the standings to No. 12.
On the International Team, Adam Scott and Louis Oosthuizen each moved up one spot in the standings after both Presidents Cup veterans shared T7 results at the U.S. Open. Scott now sits at No. 3 in the standings after he continued a successful stretch of three top-10 finishes in a row, while Oosthuizen recorded his fourth top-10 of the season to move to No. 2 in the standings.
The top of the International Team standings is still controlled by Marc Leishman, who has held the No. 1 spot since December 2018. Leishman’s opening-round 69 proved to be his lowest of the week en route to a T35 result.
Australia is still well represented among the top 8 in the International Team standings with Cameron Smith (No. 7) and Jason Day (No. 8) firmly in the hunt for an automatic qualifier spot. Day finished a respectable T21 at the U.S. Open after announcing Steve Williams as his new caddie to begin the week. Williams is known for his time spent caddying for both Woods and Scott.
The top 15 players in the International and U.S. Presidents Cup Team Standings as of June 17, 2019 are listed below. Click here for the full Presidents Cup standings.
INTERNATIONAL
Rank Last Week Player Country Points
1. 1 Marc Leishman Australia 156.27
1. 1 Marc Leishman Australia 156.27
2. 3 Louis Oosthuizen South Africa 150.13
3. 4 Adam Scott Australia 149.17
4. 2 Hideki Matsuyama Japan 142.00
5. 5 Haotong Li China 120.39
6. 6 C.T Pan Chinese Taipei 114.94
7. 7 Cameron Smith Australia 108.58
8. 8 Jason Day Australia 108.49
9. 9 Justin Harding South Africa 102.04
10. 10 Abraham Ancer Mexico 100.49
11. 11 Sung Kang Korea 94.05
12. 13 Jazz Janewattananond Thailand 92.94
13. 12 Shugo Imahira Japan 91.35
14. 14 Sungjae Im Korea 84.28
15. 15 Emiliano Grillo Argentina 83.76
UNITED STATES
Rank Last Week Player Points
1. 2 Brooks Koepka 6,790
2. 1 Dustin Johnson 6,445
3. 5 Xander Schauffele 5,574
4. 4 Matt Kuchar 5,454
5. 3 Justin Thomas 5,438
6. 6 Patrick Cantlay 4,900
7. 12 Gary Woodland 4,884
8. 7 Bryson DeChambeau 4,585
9. 9 Rickie Fowler 4,334
10. 11 Tony Finau 4,282
11. 10 Webb Simpson 4,058
12. 11 Tiger Woods 3,868
13. 13 Phil Mickelson 3,535
14. 15 Kevin Kisner 3,150
15. 14 Charles Howell III 3,148
Junior Presidents Cup
The second edition of the Junior Presidents Cup will take place on Sunday, December 8 and Monday, December 9 at The Royal Melbourne Golf Club, with 24 of the world’s top junior players, excluding Europe, competing in the newest Presidents Cup tradition that was launched in 2017. Australia’s Stuart Appleby will captain the International Team while Justin Leonard will lead the U.S. Team.
On the U.S. side, 17-year-old Michael Thorbjornsen is coming off a memorable week at the U.S. Open where he became the second youngest player in U.S. Open history to make the cut. The Wellesley, Mass., native was also grouped with 2017 U.S. Junior Presidents Cup Team Captain David Toms in the first two rounds.
Australia’s Karl Vilips, who was a member of the 2017 team, leads the International Team standings after finishing third in the AJGA’s Wyndham Invitational over the weekend. Vilips is one of two Aussies in the top 12 of the standings and is joined by Joshua Greer (No. 11). At No. 2 in the standings, Wilco Nienaber is the one of seven South Africans who are currently in position to qualify.
The U.S. Team will be made up of the leading 12 qualified players based on the Rolex AJGA Rankings as of September 5, 2019. The International Team will be made up of the leading 12 qualified players based on the World Amateur Golf Ranking™ (WAGR™) as of September 5, 2019.
The top 12 players for the International and U.S. Teams as of June 17, 2019 are listed below.
INTERNATIONAL
Rank Player Country
1. Karl Vilips Australia
1. Karl Vilips Australia
2. Wilco Nienaber South Africa
3. Jayden Schaper South Africa
4. Martin Vorster South Africa
5. Kartik Sharma India
6. Christo Lamprecht South Africa
7. Chaun-Tai Lin Chinese Taipei
8. Samuel Simpson South Africa
9. Nikhil Gopal South Africa
10. Jang Hyun Lee Korea
11. Joshua Greer Australia
12. Casey Jarvis South Africa
UNITED STATES
Rank Player State
1. Michael Thorbjornsen Massachusetts
2. Canon Claycomb Kentucky
3. Jackson Van Paris North Carolina
4. Stephen Campbell Jr. Texas
5. J. Holland Humphries Texas
6. Alexander Yang California
7. Vishnu Sadagopan Texas
8. Gordon Sargent Alabama
9. Maxwell Moldovan Ohio
10. Drew Salyers Ohio
11. Nicholas Dunlap South Carolina
12. Tyler Wilkes Florida
International Team eligibility criteria
The top eight (8) international players (excluding those eligible for the European Ryder Cup team) from the Presidents Cup International Team Points List which shall be Official World Golf Ranking points accumulated in the time period from August 27, 2018 (Dell Technologies Championship) through August 18, 2019 (BMW Championship).
Four Captain’s selections will be made at a to-be-determined later date.
A four-time winner of the Australian Golf Media Awards, including Best Photojournalism, Best Opinion, Best Column and Best Photographic Presentation, Inside Golf Group Editor Richard Fellner is the quintessential Golf Tragic, having played the game for over 50 years (but has never gotten any better!) He has played and reviewed courses all over the world, and has interviewed many of the great players of the game (including Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson and Greg Norman). Richard is a member of both the Australian Golf Media Association and the Golf Society of Australia, and has been a featured guest on many Australian "sports talk" radio shows and networks, including ABC Grandstand, SEN 1116, Melbourne Talk Radio 1377, 2GB and others.
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