Akshay Bhatia and the case for bold action at this Presidents Cup

No one spends their summer debating Presidents Cup picks, and maybe that’s a good thing. But there may be ways to make the event still matter.

The U.S. has always played the rankings straight through at the Presidents Cup. No discussion necessary. The top 12 golfers get picked. Having five or six captain’s picks is a very new phenomenon, and even with the new format, captains usually use them all on the golfers ranked Nos. 7 through 12. Maybe a star like Phil Mickelson got picked from three back. Maybe Will Zalatoris threw out his back, so the U.S. called in assistant captain Kevin Kisner, who was ranked No. 15. But generally, they just played it straight.

It’s time for a new mix.

We recently started thinking about this and it had to do with 22-year-old rising star Akshay Bhatia. We assumed he wouldn’t be in the top 12 in August. Here was a charismatic face of Gen Z who turned pro as a junior phenom at 17, has two PGA Tour wins and is one of the most exciting young players in golf. By the time most people graduate from college.

The thought experiment was that the US – after a nasty 5-point loss in the Ryder Cup in Rome – might want to give someone like Bhatia a shot at the Presidents Cup in Montreal this fall instead of some of the more established pros, that the Presidents Cup could be used as an opportunity to experiment and test for future Ryder Cups.

Bhatia has helped himself of late — he’s played in the final group for two straight weeks, finished tied for fifth at the landmark Travelers Championship and then tied for second at the Rocket Mortgage Classic (a painful missed par putt on 18 kept him out of a playoff). Suddenly, Bhatia is No. 10 in the Presidents Cup rankings and would be a pick if U.S. captain Jim Furyk followed precedent.

That doesn’t change the question.

U.S. team golf remains strong, but it’s also in a strange place. Jordan Spieth, 30, is as synonymous with U.S. team golf victories as anyone, but he’s coming off a rough week in Rome 2023 and hasn’t finished higher than 29th in his last nine starts. His regular playing partner, Justin Thomas, 31, is coming off a career-worst season in 2023. He’s improved this year, but he’s still not back to Justin Thomas. Rickie Fowler, 35, earned a pick in Rome thanks to a fantastic comeback year, but he’s struggled in 2024.

Sahith Theegala is on the verge of making his first Presidents Cup team. (Rob Schumacher / USA Today)

Meanwhile, a generation of young stars has yet to get a shot at the Ryder Cup. Cameron Young narrowly missed out in September. Sahith Theegala suffered a major setback last season and was out of contention. Zalatoris struggled with his back. And this is not meant as an insult to the international team that should be respected, but the U.S. has won the last nine Presidents Cups and lost just one of 14. With several international stars like Cameron Smith and Joaquin Niemann ineligible this year because they played with LIV, the U.S. is a 1-2 favorite on FanDuel.

It’s time to use the Presidents Cup as an opportunity to find out who is made for the cup competition. Who gets team golf?

Max Homa is the perfect example, partly because his story isn’t just about youth. Two years ago, Homa was building toward something. At 31, he had just won at Riviera and Quail Hollow and was on the cusp of stardom. Yet he had zero major successes, no cup appearances and was No. 17 in the Official World Golf Ranking. Then he went to the 2022 Presidents Cup and flourished. He was the biggest story of the week, going 4-0 because he exuded emotion and showed how much it meant to him. He got A year later, Homa was the only American with a winning record in Rome, going 3-1-1.

The top six Americans who currently automatically qualify for Montreal are: Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Wyndham Clark, Patrick Cantlay and Theegala.

Theegala, 26, is a rising star who could be part of the next five Ryder Cups. Even if he’s not in the top six, he seems like a no-brainer selection. But the Nos. 6-12 picks are Tony Finau, Homa, Brian Harman, Bhatia, Chris Kirk and Russell Henley.

How many of those players do you want on the team? Be honest. This is not a projection piece or even a campaign for specific players. We’re not going to name-drop names. It’s just a call to make sure the U.S. is thinking about this the right way. Because historically, the U.S. would do one of two things. It would draft Finau over Henley, or it would make room for Thomas (14th) and Spieth (24th). Maybe it should do neither.

Bhatia could easily finish outside the top 12 when all is said and done, with plenty of points up for grabs from the Open Championship and the FedEx Cup play-offs. The U.S. should still consider drafting him. Bhatia is going somewhere. He’s on track to become one of America’s best golfers for the next decade, a tall, lean ball-hitting whiz who has won twice in the past 12 months and nearly won a third. Even if he’s not quite Ludvig Aberg, there’s no denying that Aberg benefited from his breakthrough September in Rome. Montreal could be that for Bhatia.

Young played in the 2022 Presidents Cup, went 1-2-1 and has remained a golf enigma. He’s simultaneously a promising young prospect with five major top-10s and a 27-year-old veteran who has yet to win on tour and has struggled to play with the consistency of his peers. He’s ranked No. 18. He was one of the last men out for Rome. Does he deserve another shot in Montreal to give us a better idea of ​​whether he’s in contention for Bethpage and a home Ryder Cup match?

It’s not all about youth. Henley was ranked No. 11 in the world by DataGolf last season, but he didn’t even qualify for the Ryder Cup. He’s a 35-year-old beacon of consistency who hardly “excites” anyone, but he’s had another good year with three top 10s and nine top 30s. You might be wary of asking him to play a Ryder Cup, so would a Presidents Cup be a good test? Denny McCarthy makes a similar argument.

The Presidents Cup can also be used to test ideas and gather critical data points about pairings. At the Masters (when Bhatia was still a long way from the Presidents Cup), Theegala talked about how cool it would be to have an Indian-American pairing. “Hopefully we both make that team and make it happen,” he said. Well, it would be foolish to form a Ryder Cup pairing based purely on a shared cultural background. Presidents Cups could be that place to find out.

For example, Scheffler and his best friend Sam Burns went 0-2-1 in three games together at the 2022 Presidents Cup. Yes, they played better than the results indicate, but perhaps 2023 U.S. captain Zach Johnson should have learned a lesson before pitting them against each other for a 4-3 loss to Open Rome.

If Furyk decides to leave Spieth out of the lineup, it doesn’t have to be a big statement. It could also mean taking a year off. We know exactly what Spieth is when he wears the red, white and blue — when he’s healthy. That’s why he’s won 19 Cups between the two. Go fix your wrist, get your form back, and if you’re playing good golf in August 2025, you’re a guaranteed pick.

The only thing the US has that the Europeans don’t is an extra trophy between each Ryder Cup. Don’t think of it as an extra trophy. Make it mean something.

(Top photo: James Gilbert/Getty Images)