No DFS card this week. Team match play doesn't fit a stroke-play salary-cap model, so this is picks and props only. The storyline writes itself: International captain Geoff Ogilvy co-designed this version of Medinah through his firm OCM, and the man picking the International lineup knows the golf course better than anyone in the field. Whether that matters against a -420 favorite is the question this page is built to answer, session by session.
Medinah Country Club's Course No. 3 plays to a par of 72 at 7,564 yards for tournament week, verified against the official Presidents Cup course page. It has hosted three U.S. Opens, two PGA Championships, and the 2012 Ryder Cup in its previous form — but this is not that course anymore. OCM (Ogilvy, Cocking, Mead) rebuilt nearly every hole between 2022 and 2024: fairway acreage doubled from 29 to 58 acres, bunker count grew from 70 to 117, average green size increased more than 40%, and rough was cut to roughly a third of its former width.
What decides matches this week: wider fairways and bigger greens generally favor aggressive ball-strikers who can miss in more places and still have a look at the pin, and a reachable 646-yard par-5 (No. 6) rewards distance early in the round. This is a big-picture off-the-tee and approach golf course, not a scrambling course — which matters because match play magnifies whoever is making the most birdies on a given hole, not whoever avoids the fewest bogeys over 72 holes.
This week runs on a team match-play model, not the stroke-play strokes-gained regression StrokesEdge uses for a normal Tour stop. That's also why there's no DFS slate this week. Thirty total points are on the board across four days. First team to 15.5 wins outright; a 15-15 tie would let Team USA retain the Cup as defending champion rather than force a playoff.
Team USA (captain Brandt Snedeker) fields Scottie Scheffler, Cameron Young, Wyndham Clark, Sam Burns, Russell Henley, and Collin Morikawa as auto qualifiers, plus captain's picks Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Justin Thomas, Chris Gotterup, Jackson Koivun, and Jacob Bridgeman. The International Team (captain Geoff Ogilvy) counters with Si Woo Kim, Hideki Matsuyama, Adam Scott, Tom Kim, Ryan Fox, and Min Woo Lee as auto qualifiers, plus picks Corey Conners, Sungjae Im, Nick Taylor, Ryo Hisatsune, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, and Nico Echavarria.
Composite-rank all 24 players by current form and world ranking and the gap is stark: USA's weakest roster spot still ranks inside the top 16 of the combined field, while International's best player, Si Woo Kim, checks in around 4th and nobody else on that side cracks the top 8. That's the real reason USA is priced at -420/-450 this week: a roster-depth story, not narrative hype.
| Rk | Player | Team | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Scottie Scheffler | USA | World No. 1; top points scorer favorite at +340 |
| 2 | Sam Burns | USA | America's No. 2 player; career-best season |
| 4 | Si Woo Kim | INTL | Highest-ranked International player; 6-5 career Presidents Cup record |
Team USA holds a 13-1-1 all-time Presidents Cup record and has won the last 10 editions in a row. The International Team's only outright win came in 1998 at Royal Melbourne; the two sides shared the Cup after a 17-17 tie in 2003. Full 24-player composite rankings and the complete value screen publish in the StrokesEdge Substack newsletter and the $7 model workbook.
Outright USA at -420/-450 is the correct price. There's no value in laying it. The edge this week is underneath, in props the market hasn't priced as tightly as the outright line.
| Tier | Bet | Odds | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| STRONG PLAY | Si Woo Kim (Top Intl Scorer) | +445 | Only International player guaranteed to see all 5 sessions; 6-5 career record, 5-3 in his last two Cups |
| VALUE | Chris Gotterup (Top Overall Scorer) | +1425 | #8 composite rank, three 2026 wins, debutant favorite for session reps |
| VALUE | Jacob Bridgeman (Best U.S. Debutant) | +375 | Led the PGA Tour in SG: Putting this season; match play rewards holes won, not strokes saved |
The full picks card (margin props, matchup angles, and the fade list) publishes free on the StrokesEdge Substack before Thursday's opening four-ball session.
Not financial advice. Gamble responsibly.
Past performance does not guarantee future results.