Worldwide Golf

Robert is a great team player. He has a lot of tenacity in team competitions. His spirit in the locker room with the other guys is exemplary so he was an automatic pick for me.

My second pick was Aaron Baddeley. I arrived at my choice of Aaron in interesting, round-about way.  I put in a call to both Aaron and John Senden at the start of The Tour Championship out of courtesy. Also on my list was Vijay Singh, Camilo Villegas and last year's Open Champion Louis Oosthuizen.
But knowing that we are playing in the backyard of Australia, I wanted to hopefully load up the team with as many Aussies as I possibly could. With the way Aaron performed, and John Senden performed in The Tour Championship, I put them both on notice that they were under scrutiny, and whoever played the best at The Tour Championship would obviously get the final nod.
So Aaron put in a tremendous performance at East Lake Golf Club, Atlanta, and had a chance of winning the golf tournament. He's played extremely well for a few years now.

It was a tough selection but the advantages of bringing him to one of his favourite golf courses made good sense and that's why Aaron was my second pick.

I always felt when I was playing for a place in The Presidents Cup Team, that if somebody was keeping an eye on me and wanted me to perform, I wanted to know about it.

I always like to know how people perform under pressure, and by having the knowledge in your head can be very useful. At the end of the day, you need to know how players perform.

Getting into The Presidents Cup means you've to be able to perform under the highest of pressures. It's a lot more pressure than playing in The Tour Championship in a stroke-play event.

I suspected both John and Aaron to play very well. John was just as excited about the phone call and looking forward to the week. In the event, Aaron played the better golf.
I adopted the same method with Geoff Ogilvy. I called Geoff up many weeks ago, because he had fallen out of the Top-10. I just said: ‘Hey, Geoff, I need you on the team, what can I do to help you relax your mind.' Basically, I said to him, ‘don't worry about it, you're going to be on the team, irrespective of whether you're in the Top-10.'
I took the pressure off of him because he wanted to be on the team so badly. By doing that, he went out there and played extremely well and got himself back in that Top-10. I went two different ways with my guys. I needed all of them. I needed Robert, I needed Aaron, I needed Geoff and I needed the three guys on the team and it just worked out perfectly for us.

I think the environment is going to be exactly what it was like in 1998. There's going to be a lot of enthusiastic players out there. Obviously, the balance of my team is predominately southern hemisphere guys - South Africa and Australia.
But at the same time, the way my team has balanced out, the pairings look very easy.

All the guys are so keen to play, and I'm just as excited at the challenge ahead. I've spoken to every single one of them. They just want to get down there. They know they've lost The Presidents Cup every year except one, and they want to win it again in their own backyard. The intensity is going to be very high.

Freddie Couples was 100 percent correct. Back in '98, guys were taking time off before they got to Melbourne and flew right in. This time most of the guys are either going to be in the same time zone, whether it's Singapore, China or in Australia, so they are going to be over the time zone. I think the competition is going to be closer and tougher than it was in '98.

I had constant communication with Adam Scott and Jason Day. It was non-stop. I had to seek the opinion of those guys, and, obviously, Timmy Clark and Frank Nobilo were integral parts as well. They all know each other's game and they know them as individuals.

Adam was very forthright in his thoughts and opinions on having a Geoff Ogilvy or Robert Allenby or an Aaron Baddeley or a John Senden on the team. He wanted to see it loaded up with Aussies, because it's in our backyard. Jason Day and Adam have been standard bearers for the International side out there on Tour for a while now.
The enthusiasm they have shown, not just in the last month, but in the last six months has been fantastic.  When Adam was staying with me for the Florida Swing earlier this year, all we talked about was The Presidents Cup and how do we prepare for it and who could be on the team and who may not be on the team. As the months went by and the players were changing dramatically, he started texting me more and more and ringing me about it.
I love that type of open communication with my guys. It's been no different all the way through to Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, K.J. Choi, Y.E. Yang - all the guys have been up front with me about how they feel about The Presidents Cup.

Whether I pair Jason and Adam together is a decision I'll make with Frank and Tim Clark . We'll go down there and prepare and see how the guys are playing and how balanced they are with themselves on the golf course and off the golf course and then decide.
There's a lot goes into the pairings. People think it's automatic, but when I look at my team, it may look very simplified in a lot of ways, but it's not a good idea to make that decision until you're on the spot.

Freddie's choice of Tiger Woods and Bill Haas are phenomenal picks. One guy who has basically dominated the game for years and has a tremendous amount of respect out there, to young Bill who has done a fantastic job in earning his way on the team.

Both of us have been in a really tough position. I had to leave off Major winners in Louis Oosthuizen and Vijay Singh. I had to look at those guys and John Senden and Camilo Villegas who are playing really well - it really was a tough call.

In a way our work is done and we can prepare and get ready. Right now I'm enjoying practicing myself, which I haven't been able to do for the last 12 months. Now the fun starts.