Jackson Koivun and a Presidents Cup Gamble Worth the Risk

In 2016, Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III had a difficult choice to make with his final pick to fill out his roster. There was a wave of sentiment that he should pick veteran Ryan Moore, who was coming off a compelling performance in the Tour Championship. Moore had already won the John Deere that season, and in the final event before the selections were made, he’d clawed his way into a playoff against Rory McIlroy. McIlroy beat him, but the idea that Moore was a hot hand made a lot of sense. Why risk it? No one would criticize the safe and sensible.

Love reluctantly called a young player he was thinking of picking for his last roster spot (before Moore got hot) to let him know he was not going to be on the team this time.

That player was Justin Thomas.

I share this anecdote a decade later with the acknowledgment that the Presidents Cup is not the Ryder Cup. The venues are different, the pressure is different, and the organizations running the events are different. But I think the somewhat surprising decision on Tuesday by U.S. Presidents Cup captain Brandt Snedeker to pick 21-year-old Jackson Koivun with his final selection shows the American brain trust might finally be willing to embrace a little risk for the potential of a larger payoff in these events.

Love might, to this day, feel good about his decision to pick Moore. The 33-year-old veteran played serviceably in a 17-11 win for the Americans at Hazeltine, and winning the Ryder Cup after the embarrassment and mutiny in Gleneagles was paramount. But the United States missed a real opportunity to get Thomas involved in team matches a year early, one that would have benefitted the Americans in the long run, particularly in France in 2018. Moore was never again one of the 12 best Americans, and he hasn’t finished in the top 100 of the FedEx Cup since 2019. Thomas has been an essential part of American team chemistry ever since he played in his first Presidents Cup in 2017.

If you think this kind of thing is only obvious in retrospect then you haven’t been paying enough attention to the European side and how they construct their teams. They were in a similar situation in 2023 when they could have selected Adrian Meronk but instead went with Ludvig Åberg, even though Åberg had not yet won a tournament. Åberg played well in 2023, but the move really paid off for Luke Donald in 2025 when Åberg was the only European player to win his singles match at Bethpage. Without Aberg, the Americans likely would have pulled off the biggest comeback in history.

Imagine if he had that weight on his shoulders, in front of a hostile crowd, in what might have been his first Ryder Cup.

If you think you have a budding superstar on your hands, youth is irrelevant. Sergio Garcia was just 19 years old when he played in his first Ryder Cup in 1999, and while he earned his way onto the team instead of needing a captain’s pick, European captain Mark James wasn’t afraid to play him in five matches, thrusting him into action ahead of veterans Jean van de Velde, Jarmo Sandelin, and Andrew Coltart. Garcia went 3-1-1, and went on to become one of the greatest Ryder Cup players in history. James was heavily criticized for his decision to sit his veterans after Brookline, but in the long run, his faith in Garcia benefited Europe tremendously.

I’m genuinely a little surprised Snedeker was willing to bet on Koivun’s talent, if only because it runs counter to how the United States has previously constructed its roster for these events. (Jay Haas selecting his son Bill instead of, say, Brooks Koepka in the 2015 Presidents Cup comes to mind.) But it suggests to me that Snedeker believes — as many do — that Koivun is a generational talent. It isn’t just that he might be better than Ryan Gerard or Akshay Bhatia or J.J. Spaun, it’s that he may be better already. “I just felt very comfortable with him,” Snedeker said. “I feel like he's got a bright future ahead of him. I feel like he brings a ton to our team, and excited to see what he does when the bright lights are on.

Koivun seemed a little shocked to make the team, but "It still feels like a pinch-me moment, I'm not going to lie,” he said. “When he called me and told me I was going to Medinah I was shell-shocked for about 4 hours and then it started to settle in. It was truly exciting and a really big wow moment for me because the fact that he, the vice captains and the other guys trust me and want me to be on that team, it's a great feeling."

No one in Ponte Vedra headquarters wants to hear that the Presidents Cup should serve as an experimental science lab for Ryder Cup strategy, but to be frank, that’s exactly what it should become. No one’s legacy is shaped by their Presidents Cup performance. In the Ryder Cup, Europe has mastered the art of having its vice captains and captains work together in harmony. There is a line of succession, and a collaborative approach. The Americans have found countless ways to bungle their leadership handoff, but this is the first time I can imagine the Ryder Cup captain — Jim Furyk in 2027 — feeling like the Presidents Cup captain is seeing the big picture and making a pick that might benefit the United States long term. Even if the United States loses, something that’s only happened once in 15 times this event has been held, I’m convinced it was worth the gamble.

I would be bummed if I were Gerard or Bhatia. I would have taken either of them ahead of Jacob Bridgeman, who I think has been pretty quiet the back half of the year. But after Koivun turned pro and held off Scottie Scheffler to win a tournament almost immediately, he needed to be on this team.

We’ve seen phenoms disappoint before. Koivun’s stardom isn’t guaranteed. But he might be The Prince Who Was Promised. He might be a match-play demon, and if so, the United States will benefit from it in Ireland and beyond.