The 2026 PGA Tour season came to a close on Sunday with Scottie Scheffler lifting the FedEx Cup at East Lake Golf Club after a come-from-behind victory at the Tour Championship. With Scheffler's win in the books, the last significant event on the American men's golf calendar is the upcoming Presidents Cup at Medinah Country Club from Sept. 24-27.
Scheffler secured his spot on that team long ago, and he will be joined by Cameron Young, Wyndham Clark, Sam Burns, Russell Henley and Collin Morikawa as the automatic qualifiers on Brandt Snedeker's United States squad.
The Tour Championship provided one final data point for Snedeker to consider as he gets set to fill out the roster with his six captain's picks, and whittling the pool of American players down to that final six is not an enviable task.
Based purely on standings, the next six players would be Chris Gotterup, Ben Griffin, Xander Schauffele, J.J. Spaun, Justin Thomas and Jacob Bridgeman, but Snedeker has made it clear that he will cast a wide net, noting before the FedEx Cup Playoffs that he thought "20-22 guys have a chance of making this team right now."
As for how he will decide on the six captain's picks that will join the team at Medinah, Snedeker plans to start with results with less interest in projections.
"You look at how they've played, what they're capable of, what their ceiling is, what their basement is, what their floor is, and kind of go from there," he said.
Snedeker's task got even tougher after the Tour Championship, as Ryan Gerard made a strong push for selection with his third-place finish, and the lingering question about Jackson Koivun remains after the former top amateur in the world notched a win and made the playoffs in just six PGA Tour starts.
Snedeker will make his choices official at 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Sept. 1. However, ahead of the official picks, CBS Sports it taking a look at the six players Snedeker should choose to represent the U.S. squad at Medinah.
| 1 | |
| Gotterup is a lock to make the squad with three wins this season and a strong finish to the year at the Tour Championship. He doesn't have any major international team competition experience as a pro, but he has the look of a longtime member of United States squads. It'll be exciting to see him get his first taste of that team-competition atmosphere, and gaining some comfort with the team format will be important, especially with the U.S. side needing to build some positive momentum ahead of an away Ryder Cup in 2027. | |
| 2 | |
| Schauffele has a 10-4-0 record at the Presidents Cup, and while he didn't pick up a win this season, he was steady as ever with seven top 10s. There's no world in which Schauffele isn't on this roster, particularly given this team needs some more players with strong team competition records. The more interesting question will be whether his longtime team event partner, Patrick Cantlay, makes the squad, too. | |
| 3 | |
| If you combine Thomas' 10-3-2 career Presidents Cup record with Schauffele's mark, they have more combined wins than the entire group of six automatic qualifiers. Thomas had a strange 2026 season: He was solid after returning from injury (16 made cuts and 10 top-25 finishes in 17 starts) but couldn't find that top gear with just two top-10 finishes. Still, his performance was good enough that, when combined with his strong record in team events, he almost has to be one of the six captain's picks. | |
| 4 | |
| Cantlay's regained some form in the back half of this season and did just enough to get the nod based on recent form and his Presidents Cup résumé. Like Schauffele, he's got a 10-4-0 career record in the Presidents Cup -- much of that alongside Xander -- and having a comfortable pairing you can lean on is a hard thing not to want as a captain. However, this is the most flexible of these projected picks; if Snedeker wants to go in a different direction, it would be tough to begrudge him. | |
| 5 | |
| Gerard's third-place finish at the Tour Championship should get him onto the team, as it was his seventh top-10 finish this year. He was open this week about how much making the Presidents Cup roster means to him, and that shouldn't be discounted as a reason to want him on the squad. If there's one thing that the U.S. side has struggled at times to find, it's the same level of passion for team competition that the Europeans have had in the Ryder Cup, and someone who is open about how much it means to be on the roster could be just what this American team room needs. It doesn't hurt that Gerard is a really good player, and while Snedeker insists he won't add youth for youth's sake, it's easy to make the case for Gerard on merit, beyond just wanting to get some fresh blood on the team to see how he handles it. | |
| 6 | |
| At the Wyndham, Snedeker noted that the challenge in evaluating Koivun is that he has so few PGA Tour starts, but he also tipped his hand a bit by calling him a "generational player." Leaving Koivun off this roster would be malpractice. There's not such a glut of American golf talent right now that you'd be snubbing someone who has a résumé that demands inclusion, and Koivun did everything you could ask of him to earn his spot on the team. He won his third PGA Tour start and backed it up with solid showings after that, finishing in the top 32 in his final three events. Facing the pressure of needing a solid finish to make the playoffs, sitting on the bubble, Koivun managed the T29 he needed to stay in 70th and make it to Memphis -- where he finished a solid T24. Snedeker noted that he'll be focused on a guy's floor and ceiling, and there's an argument to be made that Koivun's floor and ceiling are both higher than anyone else under consideration for this spot. Not wanting to take a player just to get him comfortable for future events is a legitimate perspective -- especially since Snedeker may not be involved in those future decisions -- but Koivun can help this U.S. team win right now. It just also doesn't hurt to get the best young American player in a decade some immediate team experience, knowing he might need to carry the torch in the not-too-distant future. | |
Snubs
If those six are the choices, that means there are some snubs who would have plenty of reason to be frustrated by their exclusion from the roster.
| 1 | |
| Griffin is eighth in the standings with four top-10 finishes this year, but his recent form hasn't been great with two missed cuts and no top-20 finish in his last six starts. Griffin needed a stronger finish to lock in his spot on the roster, and the way he limped to the finish in the playoffs allowed others like Gerard to pass him. | |
| 2 | |
| Spaun would've had a real argument to be on the roster had he not withdrawn from the Tour Championship with a back injury. With the Presidents Cup starting in just over three weeks, it's hard to be confident he'll be ready to play at the desired level. | |
| 3 | |
| It was tough deciding between Bridgeman and Cantlay. Having the best putter on the PGA Tour on the roster would give Snedeker some really interesting pairing options, but while he played decently down the stretch, most of his best golf came early in the season on the West Coast. | |
| 4 | |
| There was a time this spring when it felt like Bhatia might be a lock, but he cooled off considerably this summer before a decent run in the playoffs. If you're talking about a guy's floor and ceiling, Bhatia's floor is simply lower than the others that made the roster. | |
