Trevor Immelman Didn't Fight for the Best Players, and What He Settled for Isn't Good Enough
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — His team down 8-2, Trevor Immelman is faced with a close to impossible task: make the last two days of this Presidents Cup not only competitive, but potentially eke out a victory.
After his team only won one of five available points on Friday, the International team captain gave the American team props for their putting prowess and said the difference was on the greens.
Immelman talked about putting one foot in front of the other, to keep fighting, his team's backs against the wall and going to have to dig deep ... in fact he used all the clichés that a head coach would use when his team is in trouble.
Trevor Immelman had another option in selecting his International team, though it may have cost him his captaincy.
Jim Dedmon/USA Today
But did it have to get to this point? Did the South African have options that would have strengthened his team and made them a more competitive group?
The answer is yes, Immelman had options—or really one option: get the best 12 players he could on his team and don’t settle for whatever pool of players the PGA Tour and commissioner Jay Monahan told him he could pick from.
After a heartbreaking 16-14 loss in Australia in 2019, energy and optimism was in the air over Royal Melbourne Golf Club. The Internationals had lost, but they knew they had the makings of a team that could beat the Americans going forward.
“It's hard to digest,” Adam Scott said after another loss in 2019, his eighth out of nine attempts. “At the moment, it's incredibly disappointing but generally the positivity and being optimistic are what's happening, and I like where this team is going, and I'll be working really hard now to be on the team in two more years.”
Starting almost immediately, Immelman was planning the next step for an International team that saw their efforts come up just painfully short, but not in vain.
Immelman spent the next two years communicating with his potential team and continued to implement what ex-captain Ernie Els had started.
If not for the pandemic, Immelman would have had the team he wanted in 2021, with the nucleus of the 2019 team and a couple of new additions.
But the pandemic forced a one-year postponement and then LIV Golf came from the ashes of Greg Norman’s worldwide tour idea from the '90s.
Over a period of three months, Immelman lost Abraham Ancer, Marc Leishman, Joaquin Niemann, Louis Oosthuizen and Cameron Smith to LIV and had to make alternate plans.
This is where Immelman made his biggest mistake of the Presidents Cup: He didn’t get his players.
He didn’t get in PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan’s face and tell him that he wanted to be able to pick the 12 players he wants, LIV or no LIV.
Since 1994, the Internationals have been mostly a doormat for Uncle Sam’s team and Immelman should have said he was not coming to Quail Hollow Club with an inferior team.
Of course, if you take that position you have to be willing to give up your captaincy, a difficult decision, but making difficult decisions is part of a captain’s job.
Els changed not only the look and feel of the International team but butted heads numerous times with Monahan.
He didn’t get everything, but Els got most of what he asked for, including an emblem that the players are proud to play for.
“We're absolutely playing for the shield,” Immelman said of the insignia Els insisted upon for the 2019 team. ”That really has been our goal, for young kids all over the world to grow up and fall in love with the game of golf and dream to play on this team.”
What Els didn’t get was autonomy with an organization that looked after the interests of the international team 24/7. That type of autonomy may have allowed Immelman to pick the 12 players he wanted for his team.
Immelman and his 12 players came to Quail Hollow to win and they'll likely go home disappointed and without the energy and optimism the 2019 team had when leaving Australia.
Immelman was committed but was unwilling to go the extra mile to take on Monahan, and because of that he came here with an inferior team and will leave believing he and his team did their best—but they came up short because of personnel.
Until Monahan gives the Internationals their freedom to run the show as they see fit, the defeats will keep on coming like indigestion every two years and there is not enough antacid to cure this ailment.