By Michael Mattingly, Lead Golf Writer | SEPT 27, 2026
September 26, 2026 — Medinah, Illinois
“So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine and the moon rose over an open field…” – Simon & Garfunkel.
On Saturday, the clubhouse at Medinah Country Club turned 100 years old.
Opening on September 26, 1926, it was built by the Shriners in a Byzantine style, incorporating classic Moorish architecture and resembling a Turkish mosque.
Perhaps, to some, an architectural style somewhat out of place in this moment of neo-nationalism in America.
Perhaps to others, it is a reminder that America has always been a place where cultures meet, mingle, assimilate and become something new.
Either way, it seems an appropriate place to play a Presidents Cup.
Saturday evening, I sat on my deck as the sun slipped behind the tree line. The pool pump hummed in the background. The season is winding down.
I poured a bourbon and sat with my dog, Anni, looking out over her backyard and wondering what wildlife—or ghost—might emerge from the trees.
Anni is a blonde golden retriever. Her appearance would lead you to believe she is an English show golden. But her sassiness, fondness for water and propensity to hunt and catch anything that moves in the yard betray her true disposition as a field golden.
Somewhere between the second and third sip, I realized, much as Oscar Wilde once did, that summer had finally taken a bow and yielded to fall.
You can feel it now.
The evenings arrive a little earlier. There is the slightest chill in the air, just enough to make sleeping with the windows open feel perfect for a few weeks before the furnace takes over.
There is something about the first real fall evening that makes you slow down.
Maybe it makes you think.
So I sat there thinking about golf.
More specifically, the Presidents Cup at Medinah.
And about something the U.S. captain, Brandt Snedeker, said before the whole thing began:
“Let’s be savages for everybody this week.”
I looked at Anni.
I’m still trying to figure out exactly what he meant.
She looked up at me with that little bit of sassiness she carries around.
Maybe he meant Sauvage, Johnny Depp’s cologne.
I laughed at that image and countered with, “Maybe he meant sausage.”
Anni raised her head and sniffed the evening breeze.
She likes sausages.
Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago, would probably have been happy to oblige.
Yes, girl.
But I think Snedeker really did mean savages.
And that got me thinking.
Chicago—and maybe America, for that matter—doesn’t need to be savage.
Most of the people I’ve gotten to know there are hardworking, good citizens. I know because I married a Chicago girl.
Broadly speaking, Chicagoans may not always agree on politics. Hell they may not root for the same sports team.
But just like their neighbors downstate, they will invite you into their home for a visit, share a drink—or two—with you, make a meal for you, give you a ride when you need one. They will challenge you, call you on out on BS, but always with a degree of respect.
What you find is that politicians can separate us, if we let them.
I digress.
Back to golf.
When Snedeker said “savages,” I suspect a lot of us thought about Bethpage a year ago, when the Ryder Cup became almost as much a story about the behavior of some fans as it was about the golf.
Players were subjected to personal abuse. Fans were ejected. Security had to intervene. At times, the noise crossed the line from partisan enthusiasm into something that had little to do with golf.
Nobody wants a quiet Ryder Cup.
Nobody wants a Presidents Cup where the fans politely clap and sip tea.
Team golf is supposed to have an edge.
You should want your team to win.
You should want the other team to lose.
You should make the visiting team feel like it has 20,000 people standing against it.
But there is a difference between making an opponent uncomfortable and insulting his wife and children.
And so the Presidents Cup arrived at Medinah, one of the most storied pieces of American golf real estate, with Chicago waiting.
And Chicago has done what Chicago does.
It has been loud.
It has been partisan.
It has been enthusiastic.
And, perhaps most importantly, it has been classy. Isn’t that golf?
On Friday, the Americans lost all five matches.
Five to zero.
The International team walked away with a 7–3 lead, only the fourth time in Presidents Cup history the Internationals had led after two days.
And suddenly another thing Snedeker said seemed more important:
“I know what Chicago is built of. I know what kind of fans we’ve got here. They’ll come out tomorrow. We’ve just got to go out and play good golf.”
Well.
There it is.
Maybe that was the part we should have been listening to.
We’ve just got to go out and play good golf.
Because the Americans didn’t lose five matches because Chicago wasn’t savage enough.
They lost five matches because they didn’t win five matches.
They watched putts scorch past the edge of the cup while the International team made birdie.
That’s golf.
You can scream.
You can chant.
You can wear red, white and blue.
You can make Medinah shake.
But eventually somebody still has to make the white ball go into the cup.
And maybe that’s the irony of the whole thing.
The captain asked Chicago to be savages.
Chicago apparently decided to be civilized.
Meanwhile, the International team took a four-point lead.
Perhaps the Americans should have asked for a little more from the guys holding the golf clubs.
There is something wonderfully old-fashioned about the way golf can work when we let it.
You can want your guy to make the putt.
You can desperately want the other guy to miss it.
You can roar when your team wins a hole.
But you can also watch an opponent hit a magnificent shot and appreciate what you just witnessed.
That isn’t weakness.
That’s golf.
And on Saturday afternoon, I was reminded why.
When the four-ball matches ended, I watched American and International players take off their hats and shake hands before returning to their respective teams.
I’ve seen that same gesture on my local nine on a Sunday morning.
Two guys who just spent four hours trying to beat each other shake hands and say, in effect:
Great round.
Good job.
See you again.
The stage changes.
The gesture doesn’t.
That’s golf.
And perhaps Medinah is the perfect place to remember it.
A hundred years ago, a group of Shriners built a clubhouse that borrowed from architectural traditions an ocean away and made them part of the landscape outside Chicago.
A century later, Americans and internationals are walking the same ground, competing against one another, while thousands of people cheer from the galleries.
Cultures meeting.
Competition without hatred.
Passion without cruelty.
Maybe that’s a little closer to the America I recognize.
And maybe that’s what Chicago has shown us this week.
Chicago doesn’t need permission to be loud.
It doesn’t need permission to be proud.
And it certainly doesn’t need to prove that it can be uglier than somebody else’s crowd.
It just needs to show up.
Which it has.
And that gets us to Sunday.
The Americans have narrowed the gap to three points. The International team will take a 10½–7½ lead into Sunday’s singles, their first lead entering Sunday singles on U.S. soil.
If you find yourself in the mood to watch, let me tell you right now watch the Si Woo Kim / Justin Koivun match. This will be a match of an ice-cold enforcer against a 21-year old American phenom.
And the tension is already there as things got a little spicy between these two on Saturday.
Kim and Koivun found themselves on opposite sides of a four-ball match, and after Si Woo dropped a clutch putt under some serious Chicago pressure, old Si Woo turned toward the crowd and gave them the old-fashioned shush. You have to love it.
Which, of course, is exactly the kind of thing you do when you’re playing in Chicago and would like to make some friends.
I’m guessing Koivun noticed. Because I sure as hell did.
And that’s what makes this matchup so interesting. Si Woo plays golf like someone turned the volume knob all the way to eleven. Every putt is an event. Every fist pump comes with a soundtrack. Every good shot seems to require an emotional receipt.
Koivun is the opposite. Quiet. Deliberate. Almost unnervingly calm. He doesn’t seem particularly interested in telling you how he feels. He’d rather just hit the next shot – remarkable for a 21-year old.
Put those two personalities together, add a Sunday afternoon at Medinah, a partisan Chicago crowd and a little unfinished business, and you’ve got something more than a golf match.
And if that isn’t enough, President Trump will be
at Medinah, and I have absolutely no idea what effect his appearance will have on the atmosphere.
Maybe Chicago will roar.
Maybe it will boo.
Maybe it will cheer.
My guess is it will do what it has done all week and let the golfers provide the drama.
Because after the President makes his appearance, the real show begins.
The Americans have a deficit to overcome.
And there is only one way to do it.
Play good golf.
Let the President have his moment.
Let the fans have theirs.
Then let the golfers decide it.
Because that’s what we’re really here for.
Not savages.
Not villains.
Not enemies.
Just golf.
And maybe, as summer finally gives way to fall, that’s enough.
This Tuesday will mark the eighth anniversary of the passing of my Grandma Lita.
I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye the way I would have liked. I suspect I’m no different from a lot of people in that respect.
But she left me something I’ll always have.
Actually, she gave it to my wife and me.
On our wedding day, Grandma Lita took the time to write us a handwritten letter in beautiful cursive, the kind you see less and less of, sharing her wishes for our life together.
Looking back, one of the things she wrote was simple:
“Be kind to each other.”
I think about that often. Over the course of 21 years, I should have read that letter more often.
And sitting on my deck Saturday night, thinking about golf, Chicago, Medinah and a captain asking his fans to be savages, I thought about Grandma Lita’s advice again.
Maybe she had it right.
Maybe we don’t need to be savages.
Maybe we just need to be kind to each other.
Even when we’re trying to beat each other.
Especially then.
Enjoy your Sunday.
— MWM
