The Presidents Cup is better now—better than the Ryder Cup by a lot, for a lot of reasons. If you want to make it match play, I'd say that the Presidents Cup beats the Ryder Cup 5-and-4. Shake hands on the fourteenth green and see you in a couple of years.
The Presidents Cup, which starts September 22 at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Virginia, is better even though it's new. It's better the way the new Titleist Pro V1 is better than my old Titleist Professional, the way drivers the size of SUVs are better than my old Haig Ultra (even if the redheaded Haig was prettier).
I know, I know, even the suggestion that what was invented as another made-for-TV special event is better than the event it blatantly ripped off is something that is supposed to make old Ryder spin in his grave—though probably not the kind of spin you'd get with modern technology.
But I'm right about this. Anybody who watched the last Presidents Cup end the way it did, with Tiger Woods and Ernie Els playing sudden death in South Africa and trying to beat one another and the coming darkness, knows I'm right. There is nothing that has happened in the Ryder Cup lately—and you can throw in Justin Leonard's putt and the U.S. comeback at The Country Club that went with it—to compare with the finish we got from Woods and Els after the last Presidents Cup ended up seventeen for the U.S. team and seventeen for the International side.
No ties in the Presidents Cup the way they do it in the Ryder Cup. Sudden death. What became the golf equivalent of a soccer shootout in South Africa. And even though sudden death didn't produce a winner this time—because even in the dark, Tiger and Ernie wouldn't back up one step or one shot from one another—it produced the most dramatic finish in team competition since Bernhard Langer left that putt on the edge at Kiawah Island fourteen years ago. Tiger and Ernie gave us three holes that were better than three whole months on the PGA Tour.
First, Robert Allenby had to win the eighteenth hole from Davis Love III to set the whole thing up. Love was 1-up with one to play but Allenby forced a playoff when Love made bogey after a chip shot so bad you thought it was Courtney Love III trying to get the ball up and down. So everything was even and darkness was coming and Captain Jack (Nicklaus) went with Tiger and Captain Gary (Player) went with Ernie.
Both parred the first extra hole.
Both parred the second extra hole.
The third hole was a par three. Or we assume it was, because nobody could see much of anything by then. They both hit the green, but weren't anywhere near the cup. Woods had something like a ninety-footer. Some people called it 100. Els was fifty feet away. You sort of knew that whomever made par this time was going to win the thing for his side. Forget about read or speed. Just hit it and hope.
Woods went twelve feet past.
Els went six feet past.
At that point, it was clear that if one of them made and one of them missed, it was over. But that's the only thing that was clear—night had fallen.
I can't tell you to this day how many times Woods's putt broke, or was supposed to break, or how he thought it was going to break that night. All I know is that he made it. Mostly he made it because he is Tiger Woods, and he is made for this kind of stage and this kind of moment, the way he is made to hit chips like he hit on number sixteen at Augusta this year to win another Masters. We knew he could stiff a shot in the dark, because he had done it at Jack's Memorial tournament one time. We didn't know he could make a putt like this, which was the same as making one with his eyes closed.
But he did.
"It was the most nerve-wracking moment I've ever had in golf," he would later say.
