International Team captain Geoff Ogilvy faced a difficult decision for choosing his 12th and final member of his Presidents Cup team.
That’s because he deemed his fellow Aussie Jason Day needed more time to tend his balky back and was unfit to play. The 38-year-old Day, ranked 67th in the world, has been nursing the injury since withdrawing from the U.S. Open in June. The 11-time PGA Tour winner and 2015 PGA Championship winner had previously rocked the shield for the International Team five times dating to his first appearance in 2011.
“I spoke to Jason quite a lot, sort of between post-British Open, I would say,” Ogilvy said during a Zoom call with media on Tuesday. “It just didn't feel a hundred percent guarantee that he could make it through four days of the Presidents Cup. It was a bit risky. He's clearly one of the first players from our list of players to choose from, and he needs to rehab it and make it feel better, and to rush his rehab and hope it lasts for a week, that feels a bit risky.”
Ogilvy noted he didn’t want to risk a similar situation as took place at Bethpage during the Ryder Cup when Europe's Viktor Hovland was unable to play in Sunday Singles and so his singles match with Harris English was ruled a tie with each team receiving a half point.
“It was sort of on my mind a little bit, too. I talked about it with Jason a little bit, and it's a shame, as I said, because he's played a lot of Presidents Cup, and he's clearly a class act and a major winner and former No. 1 in the world,” Ogilvy said. “It was my decision in the end, but it felt like the right decision. He needs to go and look after his back and get himself back to 100 percent.”
Ogilvy selected South Africa’s Christiaan Bezuidenhout, who was outside the top 15 in the International Team standings but had been part of the team at the last two Cups.
“Christiaan has experience in this event that would have been difficult to leave on the table. He’s earned 3.5 points in five matches, including two Singles victories. He knows what to expect and he delivers. That’s why I’ve selected him,” Ogilvy said.
Bezuidenhout, 32, finished 97th in the FedEx Cup, missing the playoffs after recording just two top-10s this season – both of which were at opposite-field events. He’s No. 96 in the Official World Golf Ranking. The U.S. side, in contrast, passed on J.J. Spaun, who is ranked No. 17 and was dealing with his own injury issue after withdrawing from the Tour Championship last week with a right shoulder injury. But Ogilvy said there was a method to his madness in going with the unsung Bezuidenhout, who is still seeking his first PGA Tour title.
“He's a bit of a sort of an outlier in that his world ranking doesn't reflect his skill level. He hasn't had a whole lot of high finishes this year, which is where you get all the world ranking points. But he's finished really solid in a lot of tournaments, and his strokes gained and all his skill sets when you measure him up against all of the other players, he was well inside our top 12, believe it or not,” Ogilvy explained. “If you look at even just on the basic, the strokes gained, world ranking -- if you go on the website and look at the strokes gained world ranking and not the official world ranking, he's right up there in the middle of our list.
“And that combined with he's a fantastic team guy in the team room, and his record in the Presidents Cup is really strong. He's a fantastic putter and a fantastic iron player. It was pretty easy to find a way on the team for him because the only measure of his sort of thing that doesn't look as good is probably the official World Golf ranking. Every other metric, he became really obvious for us.”
Adam Schupak is a senior writer for Golfweek, covering the PGA Tour.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Injury forces Jason Day off International Team Presidents Cup roster