The USGA announced on Monday that the U.S. Open will return to Winged Foot in 2028, filling out the entire slate for the 2020s with a golf course that has been the site of some of the most famous major championships in history. This will be Winged Foot’s seventh U.S. Open with the first coming in 1929 when Bobby Jones took down Al Espinosa in a playoff.

Winged Foot joins a big hitter’s list of golf courses the USGA has lined up over the next seven editions of its most prominent golf tournament. Here’s a look at the venues that will host U.S. Opens for the remainder of the decade. 

• 2023: Los Angeles Country Club
• 2024: Pinehurst No. 2
• 2025: Oakmont Country Club
• 2026: Shinnecock Hills golf Club
• 2027: Pebble Beach Golf Links
• 2028: Winged Foot Golf Club
• 2029: Pinehurst No. 2
• 2030: Merion Golf Club

This is an extraordinary list. All elite golf courses, all worthy major championship venues. If we’re being completely honest, Pebble Beach might actually be the worst course on this list. If Pebble is the worst course in your group of venues, then something has gone very well for your organization. I realize it sounds nuts to disparage one of the most iconic golf courses in the country, but I’m not sure what option I’m left with considering this group of heavy hitters.

Winged Foot has traditionally been one of the most interesting tests in major championship golf. Its crazy slopes, mind-bending greens and crisp edges have provided the best players in the world some of their biggest challenges over the years.

“Winged Foot has provided the backdrop for some of the most dramatic moments in the history of our sport, with many of golf’s legendary champions being crowned on the club’s iconic West Course,” said John Bodenhamer, USGA chief championships officer in a statement. “We strive to provide players with the greatest stages on which to compete for a national championship, and there are few stages as grand as Winged Foot.”

This is certainly true, although Winged Foot — all 7,500 yards of it — isn’t what it once was. Most recently, Bryson DeChambeau torched the course en route to his first major victory in 2020 over Matthew Wolff and Louis Oosthuizen. Much consternation emanated from that major given DeChambeau’s style — hit it as far as humanly possible on a course with few penalty areas, find it and do it again — seemingly did not fit a classic, iconic venue the way many people thought it should.

“I don’t really know what to say because that’s just the complete opposite of what you think a U.S. Open champion does,” said Rory McIlroy at the time of DeChambeau’s victory. “Look, he’s found a way to do it. Whether that’s good or bad for the game, I don’t know, but it’s … not the way I saw this golf course being played or this tournament being played. It’s kind of hard to really wrap my head around it.”

Was Winged Foot, gasp, outdated?

The real answer is that a lack of restriction on equipment is eventually going to make all courses — modern, historic or otherwise — outdated eventually, and it’s going to be fascinating to see where we’re at with the golf ball and golf clubs when this U.S. Open comes around again five years from now. Winged Foot’s big problem is that its footprint can’t really expand any more than it already has.

None of that should matter in 2028, but it certainly will in 2048 or 2068 when golfers are driving the ball 450 yards with ease.

All of that is neither here nor there at the present moment. Winged Foot rocks, and having another U.S. Open there should be a tremendous addition to the major championship schedule for both the USGA and major championships in general.

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The 2023 Ryder Cup press tour officially began earlier this week as U.S. captain Zach Johnson and European captain Luke Donald made their way through Italy’s capital city visiting various sites and attractions. On Tuesday, the photoshoots and fun were put on hold as a press conference awaited the two headmen in Rome.

Each were posed with questions regarding how host course Marco Simone may play next fall, and more importantly what the composition of their teams may be. While away from the public eye since the 150th Open, Tiger Woods’ potential participation with the U.S. team in the Ryder Cup was brought into question for the American leader.

“Given who he is and what he’s all about, I can’t tell you right now: I don’t know if he will be here next year, but he will be a part of this team in some capacity,” said Johnson. “He already is, frankly. I can’t put this mildly: He loves the Ryder Cup. He has made it a priority. He wants to be a part of it as best he can. He’s gone through some things as of late that make it difficult, whether it’s travel or what-have-you.”

Woods was last a member of the 2018 U.S. Ryder Cup team in Paris, France, which endured a 17.5 – 10.5 defeat at the hands of the Europeans. The 15-time major champion accumulated a record of 0-4-0 playing alongside Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed in the team portion of the event and fell to Jon Rahm in Sunday singles.

This, however, was not Woods’ last involvement in a team competition; he thrived a year later at the 2019 Presidents Cup as a playing captain. Woods led his team to a come-from-behind victory at Royal Melbourne and was perfect on the week with a 3-0-0 record.

He has since moved in the shadows the last two years. Delivering an inspiring speech to Team USA ahead of the final day of the 2021 Ryder Cup and, more recently, imparting wisdom to Davis Love III for the 2022 Presidents Cup, the 46-year-old’s presence — while not seen — has been felt by the Americans.

Whether he takes on a vice captain’s role remains to be seen, but Johnson all but confirmed Woods will be involved with the U.S. team for the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome.

“He and I will be in constant communication,” Johnson said. “I will welcome that. He has great ideas. Has great encouragement. He’s always positive, and you know, the beauty of where we are as Team USA is we have got some really great youth that are participating now at a high level.”

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You know the names by now: Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Adam Scott, Hideki Matsuyama. But what about those who have yet to make a name for themselves? In total, the 2022 Presidents Cup will feature 14 rookies with six coming for the United States side and eight being featured for the internationals.

While a pair of those Americans include Scottie Scheffler and Collin Morikawa, who were influential in the U.S. drubbing of the Europeans at the 2021 Ryder Cup, this week still marks their first experience in the Presidents Cup. Just one year ago, Scheffler was considered a borderline selection by captain Steve Stricker for Whistling Straits. The Wisconsin native’s pick proved to be a wise one as Scheffler played a key role in the competition by dethroning Jon Rahm in singles. He would later go on to become No. 1 in the OWGR, a position he still holds. 

Something similar may possibly be in store for either Davis Love III or Trevor Immelman and one of their team’s members this time around. Quail Hollow Club could prove to be a launching pad for some of the youngest stars in the game, or even a veteran, and the team environment will be conducive to big moments. 

In 2019, Abraham Ancer and Sungjae Im proved to be up to the task for the international side. Each gathered 3.5 points at Royal Melbourne and nearly led the international team to a dramatic upset victory over the Tiger Woods-led Americans. Facing heavy odds once again, the internationals will need more than a pair of their fresh faces to step up if they are expected to pull off the unthinkable.

Odds for top points scorer are courtesy of Caesars Sportsbooks

Potential unlikely heroes for United States

Tony Finau (12-1 to be top points scorer): He may be one of the oldest members of the team, and has plenty of experience having played in three prior team events, but Finau has yet been treated as an elite player. Winning twice in the late summer, the world No. 14 almost added another at the St. Jude Championship, which would have upped his career win total to five in a blink of an eye. 

He impressed in his Ryder Cup debut in 2018 at Le National, where even though the U.S. was outmatched, Finau garnered a record of 2-1-0 which included a 6&4 beatdown of Tommy Fleetwood on Sunday. Influential in Royal Melbourne and Wisconsin, the 33-year-old will serve as a key cog in Charlotte with Quail Hollow is statistically being right up his alley.

Sam Burns (12-1): A three-time winner during the 2021-22 season, Burns has fared well in team competitions before. Alongside Billy Horschel, the SEC duo finished runner-up at the Zurich Classic to U.S. teammates Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay. Despite this being his first Presidents Cup, Burns hardly feels like a rookie.

Likely to be paired with Horschel, the two will be a difficult out as they can run as hot as anyone on the greens. If not paired with Horschel, his good friend Scheffler may be an ideal partner as the laidback, easygoing nature of each is ideal for the high-pressure, chaotic environment which will engulf Quail Hollow.

Cameron Young (18-1): Of all Presidents Cup players, Young is second only to Scheffler over the last three months in strokes gained off the tee. The presumed Rookie of the Year is familiar with finishing one spot short as he captured seven podium finishes throughout his 2021-22 campaign, including the PGA Championship and The Open.

Young is an ideal fit for Quail Hollow, and his ability to rise to the occasion should serve him well. He seems to play with the ultimate chip on his shoulder, and if able to channel this quiet assassin mentality into the team setting, this could be just the beginning of a fruitful Presidents Cup career.

Potential unlikely heroes for internationals

Corey Conners (28-1): The internationals are in a hole before a tee has even been pegged into the ground. They must rely on some of their known quantities without the depth of the U.S. team, one of which is Conners. The Canadian may technically be a rookie, but his ball-striking has the potential to give the Americans headaches.

Second in driving accuracy and sixth in strokes gained approach over the last three months, Conners is one of the few players who is on par with the Americans in this department. He often struggles on and around the green, but we have seen poor putters such as Sergio Garcia thrive in this arena. Perhaps the same will go for Conners.

Taylor Pendrith (55-1): The second of the Canadians for captain Immelman, Pendrith could be a star in the making. Returning from injury in the midsummer, Pendrith notched six top-15 finishes in his last eight tournaments, including a runner-up performance to Finau at the Rocket Mortgage Classic.

Pendrith is supremely long off the tee — third in this field — and possesses the firepower to dismantle the American side. Similar to Conners, the putter can pose problems, but if strategically teamed with Tom Kim or Christiaan Bezuidenhout, those concerns can be squashed.

K.H. Lee (70-1): The sexiest golfer in the world has quickly become one of the best golfers in the world. Successfully defending his Byron Nelson title this past season, Lee looked Americans Spieth, Thomas and Schauffele — and even his own teammate Matsuyama — in the eyes en route to his second PGA Tour victory.

The moment is never too big for Lee; that was on display in the FedEx Cup Playoffs when he clawed his way into the Tour Championship via a T5 finish at the BMW Championship. He ranks sixth in strokes gained putting, and while the results haven’t been memorable at Quail Hollow, he has posted some strong rounds, including a 5-under 66 to kick off the 2021 Wells Fargo Championship.

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Presidents Cup week is here, and while it doesn’t hold the excitement everyone thought it would after the United States narrowly eclipsed the international team in Australia three years ago, team golf at the highest level is always a thrill.

The heavily favored U.S. side seems poised to rout Trevor Immelman’s International squad, but the projection of a rout is something that has often led to some of the greatest moments in sports history. Davis Love III is leading the stars and stripes into a true David vs. Goliath situation this week in Charlotte. The level of play on both sides is inequitable, but there are still plenty of storylines to pay attention to this week at Quail Hollow Golf Club.

This event also represents a reprieve from the long, (sometimes) slow slog of individual stroke play that we get throughout the year. Even in a massive victory back in 2017 at Liberty National Golf Club, the days were still compelling. We got to see future U.S. stars, a variety of pairings on both sides and the types of exhilarating celebrations match play golf often offers up.

Let’s take a look at a few narratives that could develop this week at Quail Hollow and break down what we’ll be watching over the remainder of what should be an awesome week of golf.

1. Over by Saturday? We know the first few days of golf will be a blast because the first few days of Ryder Cups and Presidents Cups are always fun, no matter the matchup or score. You always get insane hole-outs, weird, golf-y celebrations and interesting pairings that may or may not foreshadow the future of either team. In 2017, however, the U.S. led 14.5-3.5 after the Saturday matches, and the entire event was completely over going into singles play. That’s a rarity, even when teams are mismatched like this; team competitions are normally close until the last few hours of the week. Hopefully this one will be, but the threat of a boat race exists here in a way that it has not in most recent team competitions (specifically the Ryder Cup last year at Whistling Straits).

2.  Who’s not there: Normally at team events, we discuss who got snubbed by one of the captains. Instead, this year is about who snubbed themselves. No LIV Golf League players are permitted at the Presidents Cup, which means that international team stars like Cameron Smith, Joaquin Niemann, Abraham Ancer and Louis Oosthuizen will be watching from home and possibly texting with LIV Golf colleagues Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson, all of whom were Team USA pillars over the last five years. While this should not (and will not) be the primary talking point of the week, it’s another way LIV has permeated into every crevice of the golf world, including one of the handful of sacred team weeks that we have every year.

3. Course fit: One of the big talking points going into this week is that even with the international team at full strength, the U.S. advantage at a long, brawny track like Quail Hollow would be too much for them to overcome. One reason they nearly broke a now-24-year winless streak at Royal Melbourne is because the golf course played away from the advantages of the U.S. team (length) and into the hands of a crafty, feisty international team. Of the top nine golfers historically at Quail Hollow who are also in this event, seven are Americans. Furthermore, of the top 10 best fits for this course in the event this week, eight are Americans. It’s difficult to envision either the course or the way it’s set up as anything other than an advantage for Love’s team.

4. Rookie ringers (on both sides): I’m more intrigued than normal to watch the first-timers this time around. On the U.S. side, Sam Burns, Max Homa, Billy Horschel and Cameron Young are all interesting not only as players but also potential future U.S. anchors (especially in the case of Burns, Homa and Young). Burns, Homa and Horschel are all fairly animated competitors that I expect to thrive in a team environment. For the International Team, they’ll lean on eight rookies, but the most compelling are 20-year-old Tom Kim, Corey Conners, Taylor Pendrith and Cam Davis; the latter two were selected because they can match some of the firepower on the U.S. side. If those four play to their relatively high ceilings, the internationals could be a little plucky.

5. U.S. leaders: Want to feel old? Jordan Spieth is the most experienced U.S. player … by three events (Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup). Even with the LIV players in the mix, Spieth and Justin Thomas would have likely been the heart and soul of this U.S. squad, but it’s unquestionably true now with D.J., Koepka and DeChambeau out of the picture. Phil Mickelson talked about Spieth as the future guy for the U.S., and it has turned out to be true. It will be especially true this week without Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson around as assistant captains. J.T. and Spieth are an interesting duo. The latter a chest-thumping monster who is 10-2-3 in team sessions at these team events, and the former a calm, confident presence in the press tent and, presumably, the locker room for players who aren’t much younger than him. They should be who we thought Mickelson and Woods were going to be for the next 10 years of U.S. team golf.

6.  Top Scheff: I joked that the best player in the world and Jon Rahm were playing the singles match of the Ryder Cup last year, and this year it turned out to not be a joke as Scheffler rose to the top spot in the OWGR after four wins early in the year. He was perhaps a bit of a surprise hero last year at his first U.S. team event as he went 2-0-1, but he’ll sneak up on nobody this year. My question is whether he can lead from out in front as one of the Americans with the biggest targets on his back.

7. Foursomes advantage: The big problem for the international team — other than the fact that it has three players ranked in the top 25 of the OWGR and the U.S. has 12 — is that it has been unable to compete in foursomes at this event over the last two decades. The stat below is jarring. The internationals have actually outperformed the U.S. team in singles play and tied them in fourballs over the last 15 years, but have been absolutely torched in foursomes. That’s something to keep an eye on going into the week.

8. U.S. pairings: I care way too much about the in-the-weeds minutia on the U.S. side of things, and I think we’re probably going to get some pairings this week that we’ve either already seen at the Ryder Cup or will see again next year in Rome. Here are the pods for the first two days of practice rounds for the U.S.

Burns-Scheffler is an obvious pairing. So are J.T.-Spieth and Cantlay-Schauffele. Finau is so pliable from a personality standpoint that you could plug him in with any of the three guys in his pod and it could make sense. Kisner and Horschel are pretty interesting, and though they’re not necessarily off the charts statistically at Quail Hollow, they would be a nightmare to go up against. Morikawa-Homa is a ball-striking extravaganza. I cannot wait to see how these play out.

9. What does U.S. future look like after optimistic Whistling Straits? I wrote about the U.S. Dream Team that invaded Lake Michigan this time a year ago. In that moment, the future looked indelible as the red, white and blue looked unbeatable. However, nearly half that team is gone (either to LIV or to injury), and in their place steps some question marks. This year’s Presidents Cup won’t determine what the future of U.S. team golf looks like, but it might actually be more representative of what the next five years will look like than last year’s Ryder Cup did. It would be surprising if that resulted in a more optimistic outlook given the talent on that team and what has been lost, but it could result in a similarly unified group that moves into the future of Ryder Cups and Presidents Cups against the best players from the rest of the world.

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Following its counterpart’s announcement on Tuesday, the United States team revealed its six captain’s selections for the 2022 Presidents Cup at Quail Hollow in two weeks. Captain Davis Love III dealt with twists and turns of his own as presumed pick Will Zalatoris bowed out of consideration following his withdrawal from the 2022 Tour Championship due to two herniated discs in his back.

In his place, Love’s selections of Jordan Spieth, Collin Morikawa, Max Homa, Billy Horschel, Cameron Young and Kevin Kisner will don the red, white and blue in Charlotte. They join the six automatic qualifiers of Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Sam Burns, Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas and Tony Finau, and make up the 12 men responsible for defending the dramatic 2019 triumph at Royal Melbourne led by Tiger Woods.

Burns is the lone automatic qualifier who will be making his team-competition debut, but he is joined by a number of rookies among the captain’s selections. While Spieth is set to compete in his fourth Presidents Cup and eighth team event, this marks the first Presidents Cup for four of the selections. Only Kisner has any prior Presidents Cup experience under his belt, while Morikawa was an integral part of the U.S. Ryder Cup team last fall.

Morikawa collected a 3-0-1 record in the 2021 Ryder Cup victory at Whistling Straits and Kisner was a member of the 2017 Presidents Cup team at Liberty National where he garnered a 2-0-2 record. A native of South Carolina and a staple at the WGC Match Play, Kisner was the likely the last man selected and the beneficiary of Zalatoris’ injury.

“There are a lot of great players who excel in match play, but Kisner thrives off of this format and I know he is eager to compete at Quail Hollow,” said Love. “As a South Carolina native and one of the more popular players on Tour, he will bring some vocal fans with him and help to build an atmosphere that our team embraces.”

Homa enjoyed the strongest season of his PGA Tour career in 2021-22. Winning the Fortinet Championship and the Wells Fargo Championship, he was one of nine multiple-time winners on the season and gained strokes in each area of the game for the first time in his career. Known to play his best golf on long, classical golf courses, the return to Quail Hollow — the site of his first career victory in 2019 — should bring a sense of comfort for the rookie.

Horschel brings a fieriness to the U.S. side that is typically reserved for the likes of Thomas. Not receiving a phone call last fall for the Ryder Cup, the former FedEx Cup champion harnessed this disappointment into a victory at the DP World Tour’s flagship event, the 2021 BMW PGA Championship, the following week. A player capable of making putts in bunches and having won at Muirfield Village this past summer, 35-year-old Horschel will be ready for his debut.

As will Young, who appears to be wise beyond his years. Likely to be bestowed the honors of PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, the former Wake Forest Demon Deacon returns to state of North Carolina with plenty of confidence and game. The 25-year-old finished inside the top three on seven different occasions in his first season on the PGA Tour, including his T3 finish at the PGA Championship and runner-up result at The Open.

2022 Presidents Cup teams

With half the U.S. team boasting zero experience in this particular competition, it will need to lean on their form — of which there is plenty. All but one player — world No. 26 Kisner — find their names inside the top 20 of the Official World Golf Rankings and are led by world No. 1 Scheffler, who will be making his Presidents Cup debut.

This is a stark contrast to an international team that boasts only two top 20 players in the world and featured zero top 40 players in its captain’s selections. With the recent dismissal of Cameron Smith and Joaquin Niemann from the team, the international side has seen its chances dwindle without sticking a peg into the ground.

Previously listed as -330 favorites at Caesars Sportsbook, the U.S. team can now be found at -500. Having won each edition of the Presidents Cup on home soil, oddsmakers believe this one will be no different.

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