The President’s Cup. One of golf’s premier events with the top golfers in the world competing against each other across multiple formats to prove who is best. Team against team, a highly charged environment, raucous crowds, and heightened stakes with personal and national pride on the line.

Captained by former Masters Champion Mike Weir and hosted at the historic Royal Montreal Golf Club, the 2024 International Team had high hopes for a magical week with three Canadians amongst their roster of international stars.  Even with the urgings of the hometown crowd, it wasn’t to be.

Day 1 saw the US squad jump to a commanding 5-0 lead followed by the International Team mounting an amazing comeback and dominating Day 2 to even things up at 5-5.  After two back and forth drama filled days, and hints of a major upset in the making, any hopes of a comeback were smashed by the US team as they grabbed a stranglehold on Days 3 and 4. The US ran away with the competition at 18.5 – 11.5, the largest victory for an away team in President’s Cup history.

After so much promise, 2024 proved to be another disappointing President’s Cup for the International squad. In fact, the last positive result for the International squad was a 17-17 tie back in 2003. Aside from this minor aberration, the Americans have won the last 10 President’s Cups in a row!

Let that sink in, over two decades of competition without a win for the International Team. The US has won every President’s Cup for nearly two straight decades. Are the US players simply that much better than the representatives from the International Team?

On the surface this is an easy argument to make. At the 2024 President’s Cup The US squad had 5 players in the top 10 in the world rankings. The International squad had only 1. From a world rankings perspective this is a logical conclusion to draw, but I think is far too simplistic an explanation. 

I would argue that the International squad is more than capable of winning the event. They are certainly motivated to do so. These are some of the best players in the world with amazing skills and intense pride, not only in their ability but in representing their countries. They must be sick of losing. Every single player on the International team is a previous winner at the highest levels. On any given day each and every one of these players is capable of winning against the best in the world. There must be more going on here than just where these players sit in the world rankings. So what is standing in the way? 

If we look at the Ryder Cup as a point of comparison, as dominant as the US has been in the President’s Cup, they have struggled with equal measure in the Ryder Cup. Since 2004 during that same period of supremacy in the President’s Cup, the US has won only 3 of the last 10 Ryder Cups. 

If this were a simple matter of the team with the best combined rankings of their players always winning, these results would not hold up. How can this be?  Other factors influence performance beyond the rankings of individual players.  In fact, underdogs win in sport all the time, including in golf.

While there are a multitude of other factors influencing the eventual outcome of these events; from tactics, to who had a hot hand, to home crowd support, to a dozen other things, mindset must be considered as critical in the final outcome. 

Perhaps the simplest explanation for the President’s Cup results over this period of time is the mindset of belief.  The International Team doesn’t believe it can win, it seems impossible, whereas the US Team always believes it will win, it is inevitable.  

I’m not suggesting the International Team doesn’t want to win, of course they do, but there is a fundamental difference between a want and a belief. Mindset matters! Every athlete and team wants to win, not every athlete and team actually believes they can win. For every champion you can imagine, the path to the top was not easy, they had to learn to win and the first step in learning to win was believing they could actually do it. 

Belief is a huge factor in performance. Belief is like a super fuel that helps to narrow focus and effort while maintaining motivation in the toughest of circumstances. Belief is hard earned. Belief, at least in part, comes from experience and in the realm of the President’s Cup experience is not something the International Team can easily draw upon.  

The US players have a strong internal expectation they will win this event, whereas the international players do not hold the same level of belief. Another way to state this is that the US Team has a very high success thermostat for the President’s Cup while the International squad has a lower success thermostat.

What is a success thermostat? Similar to a thermostat in your house that regulates the range of temperature in a room, a success thermostat is the belief system that dictates an athlete’s range of potential performance. Think of this in relation to the results of two similarly skilled golfers. One good amateur might have a ceiling around 78 and a floor around 70. In other words they don’t score above 78, but they have yet to break 70 and don’t believe they can do it. This is the range of their success thermostat. Another similarly skilled amateur golfer might have a different success thermostat, perhaps their ceiling is higher, they will regularly shoot in the low 80s, but they will also regularly score in the high 60’s with a low of 67.  Their thermostat is wider, but it’s also set to allow them to go lower.   

A great example from outside of golf is the story of Roger Bannister and his chase of the 4 minute mile in the 1950s. For roughly 75 years the 4 minute mile had been seriously pursued prior to Bannister’s breakthrough. The feat was thought physically impossible to the point where some felt it would result in death for those who got too close to the mark. Bannister believed that a different approach to training could make the feat possible, and set his sights on breaking the barrier. 

In 1954, after years of serious training and fostering a powerful success thermostat, Bannister finally broke the record with a time of 3:59.40. His belief paid off, opening the floodgates for others, a feat previously thought of as impossible and untouched in over 75 years was broken again by an Australian within two months. A year later three runners broke it in a single race. Bannister paved the way for others to believe the milestone was achievable. Since his barrier breaking run in 1954, over 1400 athletes including high school students, have broken the 4 minute mile. The power of mindset, belief, and the success thermostat is on full display.

Bringing this full circle and back to golf, for the International squad to win the President’s Cup they need to find a way to overcome previous results and change their current success thermostat. They need to pull on the mindset of the European Ryder Cup teams to know the US can be beaten.  They need to look to other underdog teams, even in other sports, to see that they can develop a mindset that allows them to overcome the odds and win. They need to believe the impossible is actually possible. They need to 100% believe they can go into the next President’s Cup and dominate the US. Not an easy feat, but the previously impossible has been made possible time and time again, and underdogs win all the time.