When two of the top 25 in the Official World Golf Ranking don't make a 12-man team, it's safe to say U.S. Presidents Cup Captain Brandt Snedeker had to make some tough choices.
He left off 2025 U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun and Ben Griffin, a three-time winner last season, who were both on last year's losing U.S. Ryder Cup team. Instead, Snedeker went with a youth movement of three rookies, including Jackson Koivun, who has made just five starts as a professional on the PGA Tour.
Griffin ranked fifth in the points standings heading into the BMW Championship, the final point-counting event, and got leapfrogged by Wyndham Clark, dropping to No. 8 and falling out of the top 6
automatic picks. At last year's Ryder Cup he had a 1-1 record in limited action. Griffin failed to get back to the winner’s circle this season. In 19 starts on Tour, he finished in the top 25 10 times and recorded four top-10s. Too many middling finishes of late allowed him to be passed by other newcomers. At No. 23, he’s one of two Americans in the top 25 in the world left off the team.
The other was J.J. Spaun, who is the highest-ranked snub at No. 17 in the world. Spaun, the 2025 U.S. Open champ, won the Valero Texas Open in April but finished 10th in the U.S. Points Standings. He withdrew last week from the Tour Championship citing a shoulder injury.
“I would love to just earn my way and not have to be on the chopping block for a pick,” he said during the BMW Championship. It turns out he got chopped.
While Snedeker selected three rookies, he also passed over some potential future regulars on the team. Ryan Gerard ranked 16th in the point standings but made an impressive playoff run, including a third-place finish at the Tour Championship.
Akshay Bhatia, 24, won the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March and seemed destined to earn his way on to the team. Ranked 33rd in the world, Bhatia missed the cut at three of the four majors and finished 68th out of 70 at the FedEx St. Jude Championship followed by T-12 and T-18. Bhatia ranked 135th in SG: Off the Tee. He’s turned himself into a top putter, ranking 12th this season, but it wasn’t enough to make the team.
Michael Thorbjornsen, who won the Rocket Classic, and Michael Brennan, who won the Wyndham Championship, are both 24 years old and showed their games were trending in the lead up to the Presidents Cup, but it wasn’t enough to bump a veteran like Patrick Cantlay and his partner in crime in team competition, Xander Schauffele.
Snedeker wasn’t afraid to mix it up ― Jackson Koivun may prove to be an inspired pick ― but it’s inevitable that someone is going to have hard feelings about being left off the team. If nothing else, this should light a fire under Spaun, Griffin and a trio of 24-year-olds to make the U.S. Ryder Cup team next fall.
Adam Schupak is a senior writer for Golfweek, covering the PGA Tour.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Brandt Snedeker snubs major champion, young guns for U.S. Presidents Cup team
