We’ll go ahead and get started. We want to congratulate you on being named International Team captain for the 2026 Presidents Cup coming to Medinah. Can you just start us off with your excitement to be moving forward as International Team captain?

GEOFF OGILVY: Look, yeah, it’s an incredible honor, quite humbling when you look at the list of captains that we’ve had for the International Team. I went back to the first captain I played for was Gary Player, which was amazing in itself and all the list of guys we’ve been through.

It’s a humbling thing. It’s a great honor. I’m really looking forward and excited for it. Medinah is a place where we’ve done a lot of work, my company the last two, three years. It’s exciting. It’s clearly an away game, but it’s exciting to be on a course that I’ve come to know really, really well the last few years.

Chicago is a great golf town. A slightly stuffed golf market, you might say. I think the enthusiasm for the event is going to be huge. These events are always great. I’m really looking forward to it.

Q. Not surprised to see you named team captain because of your work with Medinah. The only slightly surprising part of it was in 2028, obviously it is back in Australia, and I started thinking, well, maybe Luke Donald has set a new precedent where somebody can captain twice. I was curious, this is looking way ahead, but was there any discussion, hey, maybe this is great for the International Team to have some continuity and give you a chance to captain in your home country as well?

 GEOFF OGILVY: I just think we’ll see how we go on that one. We’ll focus on ’26 and Medinah. We’ll hopefully win the tournament and then work that out next time. We’re just focused on ’26 at the moment. We’ve got to sort of inform on the leadership group if you’d like, its not a formal group. You guys can put the pieces

together with who that is — Ernie and Trevor and Adam Scott is very involved and Camillo and Mike Weir and all the people who have collective experience with the Presidents Cup. We’ll put our heads together, it’s a team effort. Obviously the team event for ’26 in Chicago. Then we’ll focus on that one and make any decisions about anything else after that.

Q. Then I wanted to ask about team identity. I know it’s always been one of the big challenges for Presidents Cup, it seems, because of the huge cultural differences compared to Team Europe. Ernie Els, I thought, was the first person who really had a major focus on that. You’ve got your badge and everything. How do you think that’s developed in the last couple years. Is that something you’re looking at as one of your huge priorities as well?

 GEOFF OGILVY: Absolutely. Ernie, it was sort of a stroke of — it’s a stroke of genius, really. He really understood that we sort of needed sort of the shield that he came up with, with his — it’s sort of like a banner or a symbol that we can all sort of unite under. It’s definitely, as you say, bringing people from southern hemisphere, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Canada, South America — we’re sort of bringing from all corners of the globe. To sort of create that sort of play under one banner thing, he felt really strongly about it.

It’s been really powerful actually. It’s just gotten stronger and stronger, the bond within the group over the last few Presidents Cups since the shield was introduced, the chat groups that go on on the phones. They go on longer and longer before and after the Presidents Cup. The banter is all there. I think Presidents Cup is a little bit more front of mind for international players outside of the Presidents Cup years than it used to be before, a bit more like the Europeans in the Ryder Cup.

It was a great move from Ernie. He really understand what the team needed, and it was the right time. We’re a team when we turn up to the tournament on Monday now. Whereas sometimes it would take a lot of the week to really connect.

But it’s a group that’s together. In a two-year cycle, it’s always together and always talking and mentioning the Presidents Cup.

Also, to the shield, we have young kids come up to us now sort of aspiring, who have grown up just only knowing the shield as the International Team growing up, aspiring to put it on their shirt one day or their hat. It’s been a really good thing. I think we’ve sort of — we’ve navigated that difficulty I think that’s natural with the International Team, and we’ve created a good team unity, and it’s just up now to sort of get the formula for the week of the tournament right.

Q. Two things, Geoff. One, from the golf course point of view, is there any part of you that’s kind of excited that the first go-round at Medinah doesn’t have a score attached to it like 20-under, but it’s match play?

 GEOFF OGILVY: Yeah, I think that’s definitely — I think there’s a few advantages. That’s great. I think the golf world in general, most of you guys probably as well, are a bit too focused on score relative to par deciding whether a course is good or bad, and it’s really arbitrary where you put par. So I don’t think it really matters, but everybody does focus on it.

Having a match play event the first time anybody goes there is really unique, and I think a unique opportunity for the work that we did for Medinah, that the course that we’ve seen and the shots that get hit and the decisions that have to get made, it feels like it’s going to ask some tough questions, but the courses that ask tough questions usually have enjoyable results to sort of watch and play.

Hopefully it turns out well, and it is nice. Also, the Presidents Cup, these team events are so exciting, and the atmosphere and energy is so high, it will be — it’s nice that the first event is match play and that it’s the Presidents Cup that’s going to be there. It’s going to be fun to watch.

I have no idea — I think we have an idea of how the course is going to play, but you never really know until the week and how the weather’s going to be. I’m going to be a very interested observer to see how the work we did sort of plays out when the best golfers in the world are playing on it.

Q. Thanks. Going back to your captaincy, and who knows where we’re going to be a year from now, but can you see the TOUR ever relenting on any qualified or decent LIV players being part of the International Team?

 GEOFF OGILVY: If you asked me that two years ago, I would have said no, but it feels like — and this is just a

feeling, and you guys probably all have similar feelings — that it’s a little bit closer maybe now than it was two years ago. I have absolutely no idea if that will move even closer between now and Medinah.

At some point in the golf world, it’s going to get aligned, and if that happens in the next 16 months, that will be cool because there’s some good players from the international side of things on that side of the ledger, if you like.

Yeah, I’ll be picking from the pool of players that’s put in front of me and lead it to smarter people than me to work out things like that.

Q. At what point do you need to know what the pool looks like leading into the matches? Three months out? Six months? What?

 GEOFF OGILVY: We make the captain’s picks — I think the automatic picks are after the BMW traditionally, and I think the captain’s picks are sort of a week later after East Lake.

We would need a bit more time than that obviously. It’s not apples to apples anymore. The data and the stats, and you only have the majors really to do a direct comparison between how people are playing. It would need to be a bit of time for sure. I hadn’t really even thought about how much time that would need to be. You’d probably want the major season, I’d imagine, because they’re really the events that you highlight because they’re the highest pressure events and everybody’s there. You would have the best sort of sense of feeling for sort of comparison from sort of one to the other.

Q. You had talked about team unity. I’m curious if you can speak to team hunger to actually go out and win this thing. Obviously you’ve got Adam Scott and Hideki, they’ve played on a bunch of these. Then you’ve got Tom Kim who’s 22, 23 years old. He’s played on two already. These guys obviously talk about actually going out and doing it.

 I am just curious now in the group conversations or obviously from your own leadership perspective, if you could speak to the hunger to actually go and defeat the Americans.

GEOFF OGILVY: The hunger is there for sure. When I first got involved in Presidents Cup in the mid 2000s, I think the hunger was there for the week and then it would dissipate quickly and then it would disappear for two years and then come back the week of the tournament. It’s impossible to be at one of these events and not be motivated to win.

I think with the team unity and the collective group, Adam’s played 11 of these now. Hideki is on 6, I think. That’s a lot of disappointing Sundays. That just adds fuel to the fire.

There’s a burning determination that’s in the group that is very envious. Every trophy ceremony, when we watch the U.S. Team has the trophy, it looks like a lot of fun. It’s equally as disappointing to be on the other side of things.

Disappointment usually fuels motivation, so the group is very passionate about it and very determined to sort of balance the ledger, if you like, and start winning this tournament a bit more regularly.

As I said, it just looks so much fun to win. They’re incredible events to play anyway, but it would be incredibly rewarding and an amazing experience to share with these guys like Adam and Hideki, who have been through so many defeat ins this tournament to sort of help them taste victory at the end of the week would be really special.

I think the young guys appreciate that too. You mentioned Tom and Min Woo will probably be back, I’m sure. These young guys who are sort of getting going on their Presidents Cup journeys really feel sort of the long time sort of disappointments that Adam and Hideki have had and frustrations and really want to win for them, I think. The hunger is definitely there.

Q. I’m just wondering if you can at least name one. Feel free to do more, but what are some ways that you want to stamp your captaincy in your own style? Like what’s something that you want to do that maybe hasn’t been done before?

 GEOFF OGILVY: Have them eat Vegemite on toast for breakfast every morning.

I’m not really sure. Look, I’ve been involved in seven of these things — Gary Player, Greg Norman, Ernie Els, Nick Price, Trevor Immelman, Mike Weir — they’ve all brought their own flavor to it. I’m not exactly sure what mine will be, if it’s intentional or it’s just it will match my personality and view on the game. I love match play competition. Match play is my favorite form of golf. I think it’s the purest form of competition that we can do in our sport. I love this team event. I’m not really sure what will be different about my captaincy than anybody else’s. I’ve just tried to — along the journey, I’ve learned a lot from all the captains that I’ve played with and have assisted with and just try to pick the good stuff they did and maybe see some stuff that I think that we can improve on and things we’ve done really well, keep enhancing them and keep doing them better and better and try to put my own thing. I’m not quite sure what that will look like, but I guess we’ll find out as we get closer and closer.

Q. Is designing the course an advantage? 

GEOFF OGILVY: Look, I think it’s an advantage when we turn up on Monday, but by Thursday, if touring professionals are anything — the best skill, I think, that touring professionals have over most other golfers is they can learn a golf course really quickly. The caddies are great. The players are really good — we’re very good at sort of picking up how to play a course quick.

I think, by the time we tee off on Thursday, anything that I can help the players out with with what we did and how we were hoping people would play the course, I imagine that the U.S. Team will have it pretty worked out by then.

This may be a little advantage pre-tournament, but by the time we get to Thursday morning, it will be pretty nullified.

Q. Don’t laugh at this. This is serious stuff. I’m off to a great start. Having been involved in, I think, seven of these as either an assistant or a player, who’s in charge of the swag that goes into the team room, and how critical is that for setting the tone for the week?

 GEOFF OGILVY: Well, that is the captain and the captain’s wife. Bree will be swag master, I would say, behind the team.

Look, these events are very — especially the first time you get involved, as you guys have all heard and you walk into your team room, and it’s like Christmas. It’s amazing, sort of the level of thought and attention to detail that goes into this. You get gifts and swag rained on you, and it’s an amazing experience.

After a while, after you’ve been through — I’m sure Adam is probably — Scottie and Hideki are probably sick of getting free stuff. So be thoughtful. I don’t think it is too much of an effect. It does make you love the week when you first start playing the tournament. Just everybody loves getting free stuff.

We’ll put a bit of thought into it. There will be a bit of Australian flavor involved. They’ll all get cuddly Koala teddy bears, maybe, Greg Norman in a Cobra hat. The swag is one of the fun side benefits to the tournament, but I don’t

think it truly affects how the tournament plays out. It’s just one of those fun side things. It’s good to make the team, you know.

Q. Best thing you’ve ever gotten?

 GEOFF OGILVY: Oh, my goodness. You’ve put me on the spot. There’s lots of good stuff. I can’t even — we’ve got this amazing sort of woven fruit ball thing that Trevor and Carminita got that was made by tribes in Africa that still smelled like the fire they were building around, if that makes sense. It still had the smell of Africa, and that was amazing.

Most captains usually have some sort of touch to their nationality and their homeland. That was really special. We get lots of gadgets and technological stuff and cool stuff. It’s usually the one that’s sort of the personal touch from the home country that they’re the best ones and they’re the ones that usually end up on the mantelpiece or on the book shelf at home. But that one was really cool.

Q. Just curious, Montreal was such a strange opening two days with the 5-0s going either way. To come back from that completely on Friday seems so huge. Then it just kind of turned against you on Saturday. I’m curious if, after that Cup was over, if the captains and vice captains sat down and sort of had a postmortem, how in depth you talked about maybe what went wrong on Saturday, what could have been done differently. If there’s any conclusions that you can share with us from that.

 GEOFF OGILVY: We absolutely, we had some debriefs and some postmortems. As disappointing as Thursday was, Friday was equally as exciting and satisfying. Thursday sometimes is a little bit of maybe an aberration, hard to read too much into.

But as the tournament gets going and how we react to what happens, and sort of — the Presidents Cup is unique in that we get to sort of match up to the Ryder Cup. They put blind teams in. We get to sort of match up, go against — they put a team, we put a team, they put a team, we put a team. That’s a really interesting aspect, and that gives us — it doesn’t give us control, but it’s another thing to think about that we can improve on.

I think we obviously did a great job on Friday, but that was more of an energy thing with the team. We did a great job of turning around the Thursday disappointment and created a great, positive atmosphere on Friday. Naturally sometimes after such highs — you guys were probably mostly there. That last green when Si Woo holed that putt in the dark was a pretty special moment for our team. Energy like that usually has a hangover, and how to best deal with that next time, I don’t think we’ll have another 0-5, 5-0 Thursday, Friday, that doesn’t happen very often.

But you can definitely learn from stuff and how we reacted and how we controlled the energy inside the team was the most important thing. We all had our thoughts, and we were debriefing on Monday morning, with our Monday morning hangovers after Montreal. We were talking about that and thinking straight towards Chicago and how can we do better next time and what did we learn from that?

I don’t think I’ll be sharing too many conclusions, but we definitely — you learn a lot from extreme situations like that. I think if it’s 3-2, 2-3, 3-2, 2-3 every session, there’s probably less to learn. With the big extreme swings, with the highs and lows, there’s a lot to learn. Hopefully we’ve picked up a little bit. As I said, we probably won’t see Thursday and Friday like that again.

Every single time we do this, I think we learn and we get better at it. The scores — the final scores don’t really look like it, but I think they were pretty compelling and quite close, both the last two, even though they looked like by the last hour they weren’t, but they were closer than the final score looked, I think.

We just plan everything we can and try to do better next time. Yeah, we definitely talked about it.

Q. If I can do a quick follow up, I was actually going to mention that. I think the number of holes won in Montreal was either dead even or the Americans were up one or two at the end of it, and yet you have a score that ends up looking really lopsided. Part of that is to go to your conclusion, yeah, it’s closer than it looks, but maybe is there a tactical reason that it ends up lopsided? Are there reasons that are controllable? Just curious what you think about that, or if it’s just down to small sample size and luck of the draw when it comes to that stuff?

 GEOFF OGILVY: I don’t know, we did see that. I think we won more holes or at least an equal amount of holes if you go on holes for the whole thing. It really came down to, if you sorted through the ashes of the data, it was the 18th hole.

It very often is. Sometimes these things don’t get to the 18th hole, these matches, and they’re a bit more lopsided each way, the matches, but a lot of matches went down to 18. The U.S. Team managed to win 18 more than us.

Is that a strategy thing? Is it a matchup thing? Is it a teammate thing? Is it an energy thing? There’s probably a lot of everything.

We also ran into a bit of a buzz saw. We had Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, and Collin Morikawa, arguably the four best golfers in the world last year in September, and when you’re playing like they were, all coming off the summers like they did, that’s when you’re holing putts on the last hole like they did because they’d been doing it all summer.

So I think there’s a lot of factors. The U.S. Team closed out the 18th hole, and those evens and 1-ups and 1-downs on the 18th hole, they did a better job than us. It’s up to us to work out if there’s anything we could have done about that and next time doing it better.

THE MODERATOR: We’ll wrap things up there, Geoff. Thank you for joining us.