With Team United States and Team International’s respective 12-man rosters locked-in for the 2015 Presidents Cup on Thursday, the refreshing crowd from lovely Incheon, South Korea will be fired up and ready to cheer for some of golf’s greatest players today and its decorated past.
While all eyes and attention will be fixated on the PGA’s brightest stars like 2015 majors winners Jordan Spieth and Jason Day, as well as the eternal Phil Mickelson, several other top-notch golfers on either side of the competition could very well steal the spotlight from the headliners and possibly be the x-factor towards their team’s victory when all is said and done.
Let’s take a look at a couple of players on each team that will likely make the biggest impacts and steal the Korean audience’s hearts. And don’t forget to check out our complete preview and the experts’ picks for this tournament to pump you up even more for all the great fairway-to-green action to come.
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2015 Presidents Cup Sleeper Picks and Predictions
Team United States
Rickie Fowler
[sc:Golf240banner ]Hard to believe that this is Rickie Fowler’s first-ever Presidents Cup appearance after being a part of the United States’ team at the 2010 and 2014 Ryder Cup. Could his subpar record of 0-3-5 from those two events have been the reason for his late inclusion to the Presidents Cup?
Whatever the reason may be, the Internationals still best not overlook Fowler, as he has had his best season as a pro this 2015, winning two of his three career PGA Tour titles this year including the Deutsche Bank Championship just this past month.
Fowler is also no stranger to the mostly uncharted Asian waters. In fact, his first-ever win as a pro was on the Eastern shores at the OneAsia Tour’s Kolon Korea Open with a six-shot victory over Rory McIlroy. Expect the world’s fifth-best golfer to turn some heads (and maybe even some swoons from the female spectators) with the momentum and familiarity of the environment in his favor.
Patrick Reed
With Patrick Reed’s big ego comes an even bigger expectation.
Reed is not one of America’s most consistent representatives heading into Incheon, but his attention-grabbing play from last year’s Ryder Cup certainly gives the US a sudden edge. The Texas native proved in that tournament that match play actually benefits his ironically alienating and brash persona, going 3-0-1 to literally put his money where his mouth is (just look at his haughty shot above, blatantly silencing the Gleneagles crowd in Scotland).
Furthermore, the 25-year-old Reed just won his fourth PGA Tour title at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions at the beginning of this year to go with his four other top 10 finishes this season. That win in Hawaii also gave him his career-best OWGR ranking of 14th, which proves that he can hang with the big boys and possibly play the anti-hero role once again in representing his beloved Red, White and Blue.
Team International
Danny Lee
How will Team International counter the fiery braggadocio of Patrick Reed? Well, with some stellar home crowd favorites, of course, beginning with Danny Lee.
Although he is really of Kiwi nationality, Lee was born right in Incheon and has full-blooded Korean parents, making him the most talented local golfing sensation heading into the tournament. And it’s not as if his ethnicity is the only thing going for him, as Lee put together a monumental run late into this season to add to his young PGA Tour career’s credentials.
Lee won his first-career title at the Greenbrier Classic this past July, then kept the fuel burning with four other top 10 finishes – capped off with becoming the runner-up at the Tour Championship – to finish a solid ninth in the 2015 FedEx Cup standings. If you’re looking for one of the hottest up-and-comers in the PGA Tour that will make a big mark on this year’s Presidents Cup, look no further.
Sang-Moon Bae
If Danny Lee is Team International’s best player heading into Thursday’s opening tee, then Sang-Moon Bae would be more than glad to settle with the honor of the most-talked-about Korean in the event instead.
Bae was a rather questionable choice as one of the two invites allotted to team captain Nick Price, as he was a mere 29th in the FedEx Cup Standings prior to joining the team. However, the Daegu native was not too shabby at all this season; like Lee, Bae won his first-ever PGA Tour Title at the Frys.com Open in October of last year, and also had four other top 10 finishes this 2015.
Best of all, Bae has 13 professional wins in the Asian professional golfing circuit, particularly three apiece from the Asian Tour and Japan Golf Tour, as well as a couple more in the OneAsia Tour just to name the notables. And to add, you know that the 29-year-old will play with a lot of pride and passion, as this will be his last PGA event before a rendering a compulsory two-year service in the South Korean Military.
With such a colorful and relevant backstory, maybe Price was right after all in selecting Bae as part of Team International’s tactical/psychological approach at finally putting an end to the United States’ supremacy at the Presidents, and defying the +230 odds stacked against them.
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