How the final day started

The United States won the 2026 Presidents Cup 17-13 at Medinah Country Club outside Chicago, after beginning the last day three points behind. The Americans took nine of the 12 singles matches on September 27 and halved the one still on the course, which overturned the Internationals' lead and kept the cup with the home team for an 11th straight time.

Three points is a small gap when 30 points are on offer across 18 team matches and 12 singles, with 15 1/2 needed to win. It was still the widest International lead at this stage since 2003 in South Africa, and only the fourth time since these matches began in 1994 that the Internationals had led going into the singles.

The official tournament site lists the event as Medinah Country Club, Course No. 3, in Chicago, Illinois, from September 24 to 27, 2026.

Where the Internationals' lead came from

The team sessions produced the deficit. Thursday's fourballs went to the United States 3-2. Friday's foursomes went to the Internationals 5-0, a sweep that the PGA Tour's report on the day described as putting the Americans in a 7-3 hole.

Saturday was closer to even and still went the Internationals' way. The morning fourballs went to the United States 2.5-1.5, and the afternoon foursomes were split. Corey Conners and Nick Taylor came from three holes down after ten to beat Jacob Bridgeman and Russell Henley 1-up, with Conners holing a six-foot par putt on the 18th green as the last stroke of the day. Min Woo Lee and Sungjae Im had earlier come from two down against Justin Thomas and Jackson Koivun to halve their fourball, and Lee and Ryan Fox beat Sam Burns and Wyndham Clark in the foursomes.

United States captain Brandt Snedeker sat Scottie Scheffler out of that afternoon. He explained the decision in team terms: "Scottie Scheffler is not going to go out there and win us 15 points, so we've got to go out there as a team and do this together."

Two matches that flipped on the back nine

Collin Morikawa, a two-time major champion, turned his match around on the back nine. So did Koivun, a 21-year-old rookie who was two holes down to Si Woo Kim after ten holes, won three holes in a row and closed out a 2-up win with clutch shots on the 18th.

"The kid is special. He's different," Snedeker said. "You saw that for a 21-year-old kid to stand up there and hit those last two balls like he did. Not many people like that."

Koivun had been on the winning Walker Cup team just over a year earlier, and four months before Medinah he helped Auburn to an NCAA golf title.

Patrick Cantlay holed a birdie putt from just inside 60 feet on the par-3 16th against Adam Scott. Scheffler, Cameron Young, Justin Thomas and Chris Gotterup also won their matches as the deficit came down.

The three-foot putt that ended it

The Americans needed 15 1/2 points to win the cup. Five matches were still on the course when the finish narrowed: the United States was 1 up in three of them and all square in the other two, and the Internationals needed three points from those five. Jacob Bridgeman was 1 down with three holes to play against Min Woo Lee, and he rolled in a three-foot par putt for a 1-up win that took his team to 15 1/2 points.

The United States finished the week on 17 points with 9 1/2 of them from the singles, so it began Sunday on 7 1/2, three behind, which means it needed eight of the 12 points available and finished with 9 1/2: nine wins, one halved match and two defeats.

"It was sort of on a knife's edge all day," International captain Geoff Ogilvy said. "Some of those 1-downs that we had out there, if they'd flipped to 1-up, the numbers look really good, and who knows what momentum can give."

A generic white golf ball drops into a dark cup on a flat green beneath the exact words 15½ SECURED.
The PGA Tour-hosted AP report says Jacob Bridgeman's three-foot par putt for a 1-up win took the U.S. to the 15½ points needed to clinch the Cup. This is a generic concept illustration, not the actual shot.

Medinah's other three-point comeback

Medinah is the course where Europe came from 10-6 down to win the 2012 Ryder Cup, and Snedeker was on the American team that lost it. He said he told his players on Saturday night that "funny stuff happens here. Medinah has a history of funny things happening."

The comparison stops there. The American rally this time did not go to the final putt, and the last match was halved only after the cup had been decided.

The Internationals have won the cup once, at Royal Melbourne in 1998, and tied in South Africa in 2003. They last led going into the singles at Royal Melbourne in 2019, when the Americans rallied behind playing captain Tiger Woods.

"It's a very difficult thing to beat the U.S. in singles in the U.S.," Ogilvy said. "They're great players, and the crowd came out for them."

The next Presidents Cup

The next Presidents Cup is at Kingston Heath in Australia in 2028, and the Internationals will arrive with the same question they had on Sunday morning: how to close out a competition the Americans have now won 11 times in a row.

The Associated Press described the American comeback as the biggest Sunday rout in tournament history.

The reports give no measure of the Chicago crowd's effect on individual matches and no International team plan for Kingston Heath.