Cal Sports Report

Collin Morikawa, Max Homa Named to U.S. Presidents Cup Squad

Both former Cal golfers will participate in this event for the first time

Jake Curtis

Former Cal golfers Collin Morikawa and Max Homa were selected to play in the Presidents Cup for the first time, when they were among the six captain’s picks to represent the United States against the International squad.

The U.S. has won the last eight Presidents Cups and will be favored to win in again this year when the event is held Sept. 22-25 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The top six available golfers in the Presidents Cup standings were automatically named to the 12-man U.S. team. That group includes No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schuaffele, Justin Thomas, Sam Burns and Tony Finau.

Captain Davis Love III then named the six remaining members on Wednesday, and that group included Morikawa, Homa, Jordan Spieth, Bill Horschel, Cameron Young and Kevin Kisner.

Homa responded on Twitter, saying simply: "Beyond excited and proud."

Spieth, Morikawa, Homa, Horschel and Young were eighth to 12th in the standings, and Kisner, a veteran of match-play competition, was 15th.

The 25-year-old Morikawa is currently eighth in the World Golf Rankings, and has had an uneven season. He was ranked as high as second in the world earlier this year, but has not won any tournaments this season.

Meanwhile, the 31-year-old Homa has had his best year as a pro. Two of his four career tour wins have come this season and he is currently ranked 20th in the world. He was ranked outside the top 100 to start 2021 and is now just one spot below his career-high ranking of 19th achieved a few weeks ago.

It will be the youngest U.S. team in Presidents Cup history, with an average age of 29.6 years.

The International team's highest-ranked players are Japan's Hideki Matsuyama and South Korea's Sungjae Im, who are 16th and 18th, respectively. Two of the players expected to be stars for the International team -- Australia's Cameron Smith and Chile's Joaquin Niemann -- are ineligible after defecting to the LIV Golf circuit.

Morikawa, Homa, Scheffler, Morikawa, Burns, Horschel and Young will participate in the Presidents Cup for the first time, although Morikawa and Scheffler were part of the U.S. team that defeated Europe 19-9 in the 2021 Ryder Cup.

The U.S. has won 11 of the 13 past Presidents Cups, losing just once, in Melbourne, Australia, in 1998, and tying once in George, South Africa, in 2003.

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Cover photo of Max Homa by Bill Streicher, USA TODAY Sports

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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