BRADENTON, FLORIDA – DECEMBER 10: Captain Jim Furyk and Team USA celebrate winning the World Champions Cup at The Concession Golf Club on December 10, 2023 in Bradenton, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
Getty Images
The Skechers World Champions Cup, benefiting Shriners Children’s, is a cross-continental golf clash pitting three teams—USA, Europe, and the Internationals—against one another in head-to-head-to-head competition, with points up for grabs on every hole.
Now in its sophomore edition after debuting on the 50-and-over circuit in 2023, the event brings together six-player squads who square off in nine-hole sixsomes (alternate shot) followed by six-ball (lowest score of each two-player team counts) over the first two days. Sunday singles action then brings down the curtain.
Think of it as a mashup of the Ryder and Presidents Cup, only the scoring feels more like bowling with point totals growing fast and furious. Three are awarded per hole, with two going to the team that shot the lowest and one awarded to the runner-up. Last year, Team USA edged the Internationals 221–219 in a nail-biter that went right down to the wire with Europe close behind at 208.
Returning to captain Team USA and Team Europe are Jim Furyk and Darren Clarke, while Mike Weir steps in to helm the Internationals. All three will be playing captains, steering the rudder while in the thick of the competition themselves. The global golf rumble is a fun concept and also a chance for legends of the game to re-experience the bonding and emotional whirlwind that is par for the course in high level team golf.
Team International: Mike Weir, Steven Alker, Angel Cabrera, K.J. Choi, Y.E. Yang.
Team Europe: Darren Clark, Thomas Bjorn, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Bernhard Langer and Colin Montgomerie
Team USA: Jim Furyk, Stewart CInk, Jerry Kelly, Justin Leonard and Steve Stricker.
A sixth man on each team will be determined by the Charles Schwab Cup standings, once the regular season wraps up this week. For the U.S. that play-in position should come down to Doug Barron or Jason Caron, while the final European will likely be either Alex Cejka Soren Kjeldsen or Freddie Jacobsen. In the running for that final spot on the Internationals roster are Ricardo Gonzalez, Mark Hensby and Greg Chalmers.
Feather Sound Country Club in Clearwater, Florida
Feather Sound Country Club
Checking In With Furyk And Weir
“It’s the first event of its kind on the Champions Tour,” 17-time PGA Tour winner Jim Furyk explained. “A lot of us played in these events when we were in our 20s or 30s and maybe if we were fortunate enough, into our early 40s, but it’s been a long time for most of these guys, playing in a Ryder or Presidents Cup type format.”
The 2003 U.S. Open champ is a fan of the fast-moving scoring system which took a little getting used to before he embraced it. The points are “just flying in all over the place” he explained,
Recalling the seesaw battle at the inaugural tourney where his team found themselves up two one moment, down three the next, before rallying late to “flip the script and pull off the win.”
Canadian golf legend Mike Weir is encouraged by his team’s roster as he preps for what could be another closely fought contest.
“We have a deep field,” he said. “Guys that are proven winners and not only on the Champions Tour. Angel Cabrera won a couple majors on the regular tour and made quite a splash since he’s come out here. Steven Alkers is playing the best golf of his life in his 50s, so he’s a great asset to our team. K.J Choi has always been such a steady player and Y.E. Yang has played very well since he turned 50.”
Teams tend to coalesce around a group identity in events like this and Weir describes the team’s overall group vibe as ‘laidback.’ The main message he wants to convey to his guys is “you got to play free in these things, you can’t play tight and careful.”
He also plans to draw on his personal marquee team-golf playing experiences to motivate his players. He famously beat Tiger Woods in singles play at the 2007 Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal—a highlight reel moment he remembers as fondly for the confidence it required as the victory itself.
“I was not favored by anybody in the media against Tiger, no one ever is, but I had my own inner belief in myself that I could do it. We were lagging behind quite a bit going into singles, so my mindset was let’s get the fans going. If I could get our number on the board and show that I’m up early, that could reverberate through the whole team. That’s something I’ll probably share with the guys,” Weir said.
Though his leadership style can lean calm and collected, Weir stresses that staying composed under pressure doesn’t mean lacking fire—just means keeping emotions in check when the competition heats up.
“You don’t want to have too much intensity as we saw a couple of weeks ago in the Ryder Cup. I think we’ll tend to take things in stride and given all those points available and the ebbs and flows of team golf, we’ll be pretty relaxed about it all,” Weir added.
Furyk has a differing perspective, feeling winning chemistry is all about achieving a balance.
“Having a good combo on a team is key to everything,” he said. “You need the fiery and feisty, but you also need the laid-back, fun guy who keeps everything loose.”
He believes Team USA has a good mix going in. “Jerry Kelly is fiery and feisty and Justin Leonard is kind of the same,” Furyk said. “Stewart Cink is a lot more laidback—not that he’s not competitive, not that he isn’t a grinder but he’s got a little bit of a laidback personality.
Despite captaining the defending champions, Furyk isn’t calling his group the favorite. “If you look right down the Schwab Cup, we’d be considered the underdog right now,” he said. “I hope these guys come in with a little chip on their shoulder.”
“Stewart Cink is number two on the Schwab Cup, but I think our next best guys is Justin Leonard at 14. There are a lot of Internationals and a lot of Europeans on that list above us that have had strong years. We have some really good players and folks that have had great careers and history to rely on”
The Skechers World Champions Cup will tee off at Feather Sound Country Club in Clearwater, Florida, December 4–7 and will air on ESPN and ABC. The tournament features a $1.35 million purse, with $100,000 awarded to each winning player, $75,000 to the runners-up, and $50,000 to the third-place finishers.