The Ryder Cup isn’t the only tournament where excitement is high among European teams

CLEARWATER, Fla. — You’d be forgiven for thinking Tiger Woods’ much-anticipated press conference at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas was the most riveting golf event to take place this Tuesday in December. This is not the case. The most interesting action took place in a carpeted conference room at Feather Sound Country Club on Florida’s west coast, where eight of the top names in European golf over the past three decades took the podium to kick off the Skechers World Champions Cup.

Relatively new to the professional golf calendar, the World Champions Cup is a three-team, three-day tournament for players 50 and older that is essentially a mashup of the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup, albeit in a different format (Six-Ball vs. Scottish Six-Ball!) and a more complex scoring system. In 2023, Team USA won the inaugural event with a score of 221 points after last year’s event was canceled due to bad weather. This brings us to the 2025 edition, where Europe unsurprisingly takes the lead in the all-important team atmosphere category.

This is Team Europe captain Darren Clarke, giggling as he attends a meeting with reporters on Tuesday morning. One of Clark’s five teammates, the ponytailed Spaniard Miguel Ángel Jiménez, wears a European flag like a cape; and, lo and behold, that one with the hat turned backwards, is that 55-year-old Alex Cejka? ! When 62-year-old Colin Montgomerie climbed onto the podium, his teammates playfully groaned, then celebrated when Montgomerie made it to the top. It wasn’t a winner’s press conference, but it certainly felt like one.

Team Clark, which includes Thomas Bjorn and Bernhard Langer, as well as vice-captains Soren Kjeldsen and Jesper Parnevik, used the opportunity of the opening remarks to reveal: “I made every mistake possible this week. I got lost here. I couldn’t find tee number 1 against Darren on Sunday. Yesterday I couldn’t find tee number 10. No. Tee I just figured out how at the hotel today.”

Parnevik isn’t the only player confused by the pipeline. When it was Montgomery’s turn to give his opening remarks, he said, “The first thing I want to ask Jasper is, how does the shower actually work? I haven’t quite figured it out yet, gosh, I’ve been here three days.”

So it went. Cracks, quips, barbs, laughter.

When Clark mistakenly said his team would be ready to play when the game begins on Friday, Parnevik quickly corrected his captain, deadpanning: “I think we’ll start on Thursday.”

“Yeah, Thursday,” Clark said with a smile. “Yeah, when Thursday comes, we’re here to win this week, no question about it. We want to do a little bit better than we did last time and put ourselves in the mix.”

Clark doesn’t just talk the talk. These guys are here this week for more than just a giggle. The last event, held at Charter Golf Club an hour south of here, culminated in Sunday’s contest between the U.S. and International teams. The Internationals controlled their own destiny, but then Vijay Singh and Retief Goosen hit close shots into the box on the final hole, essentially handing the title to the United States. “It’s kind of like throwing a Hail Mary touchdown in the last 10 seconds and then getting an onside kick and fielding a field goal,” World Champions Cup tournament chairman Peter Jacobson told me on Tuesday. “We were shocked.”

While the U.S. team celebrated, the other team’s captains, Clark and Ernie Els, were in trouble.

“Darren was angry and Ernie was angry. so Angry,” Jacobson said, “because it means a lot. The desire to compete has no age limit. It doesn’t matter if you are 7 or 57. “

This week, Team USA is captained by Jim Furyk; his team consists of Stewart Cink, Jerry Kelly, Justin Leonard, Steve Stricker and Jason Caron, as well as co-captains Steve Flesch and Billy Andrade. International team captain Mike Weir will play alongside Angel Cabrera, KJ Choi, Steve Alker, YE Yang and Mark Hensby; Weir will be assisted by Charlie Wi and Ricardo Gonzalez.

Americans didn’t let Europeans have all the fun. On Monday night, members of Team USA sounded like they had stayed up late. “Drinking too much may not start the week right,” says Stricker. “That’s how we ended up two years ago and we had a lot of fun.”

Justin Leonard added: “Please need some electrolytes.”

No matter how you feel about the “Silly Season” events between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it’s hard not to appreciate the assemblage of global talent who took to the podium Tuesday morning. For golf fans of a certain era, this week’s Feather Sound feels a bit like one of those baseball fantasy camps in this part of Florida. But you don’t get a World Series championship, you get a major championship. Wander the grounds and you might spot YE Yang, who famously defeated Tiger Woods at the 2009 PGA Championship. Or Masters champions like Mike Weir or Angel Cabrera; or timeless wonders like 68-year-old Bernhard Langer.

Montgomery had just completed a nine-hole practice round on Tuesday afternoon when Langer swooped onto the ninth green, narrowly missing Monty in the head.

You can’t blame Montgomery for being salty, but he was quick to laugh it off. There are a lot of people like that on this team.

“That’s what you get in the Ryder Cup, too,” Montgomery told me at Greenside. “We make fun of each other, make fun of each other, make fun of each other. We put our egos behind us and fight for each other.”