Golf is the loneliest sport there is. One player, one caddie, one bag, and a week of silence between the ears. That is the version most people know — stroke play, a leaderboard sorted by numbers, a Sunday back nine decided by who flinches last.
And then there is the Presidents Cup. Twelve players a side. Partnerships. Alternate shot. A scoreboard that moves in red and blue, not strokes. A putt that drops in front of a grandstand and the roar rolls across the property like a stadium, not a fairway. For one week, the most individual sport in the world becomes a team sport — and it is a completely different thing to watch.
The 2026 Presidents Cup arrives at Medinah Country Club, just outside Chicago, in late September. If you have never been to a team golf event, it is hard to overstate how different the energy is. And if you have, you already know: the grounds, the atmosphere, the Chicago week — it is worth clearing a calendar for.
What match play actually feels like
The Presidents Cup is match play, not stroke play. Every match is head-to-head. A hole won is a hole won. A putt that finishes an inch from the cup is worth the same as one that drops from forty feet. Every single hole carries consequence — not as a cumulative number at the end of the round, but right now, on this green, in front of this gallery.
The scoreboard moves in colors, not strokes. The roars are different. A birdie in stroke play is a good round getting better. A birdie in match play, with the right match on the right hole at the right time of day, shakes a grandstand. The energy builds and releases hole by hole instead of building toward a Sunday afternoon crescendo. It is, structurally, closer to a playoff series than a golf tournament.
It is the United States against an International team drawn from everywhere in the world except Europe — Australia, South Africa, Japan, Argentina, Canada, the Caribbean. It is not the Ryder Cup. The roster of names is different, the texture of the rivalry is different, and the history is its own. But the format — the part that turns golf into a team sport — is the same engine that makes the week electric.
Golf is the most individual sport there is — until it isn't.
The Medinah factor
Medinah Country Club is not just a venue. It is a place where golf history has already written itself once, and written itself in a way nobody expected.
In 2012, Medinah hosted the Ryder Cup. The United States carried a four-point lead into the final day's singles matches. By most accounts, the week was over. Europe won eight of the first twelve matches outright, took the Cup back, and the day is remembered now as the Miracle at Medinah — the most dramatic Sunday comeback in the competition's history.
That was the Ryder Cup. This is the Presidents Cup. Different teams, different story. But the course remembers, the Chicago galleries remember, and match play at Medinah — where one Sunday already rewrote itself — is the kind of stage that turns a Tuesday practice round into something worth being on the grounds for.
The Chicago part of it
Like the US Open, the Presidents Cup is a major event inside a major city, and that is both the appeal and the work. Medinah sits about thirty miles northwest of downtown Chicago. The Loop is open the way Chicago is always open in September — the restaurants, the lakefront, the rooftops — and getting to and from the course is the part that separates a good week from a frustrating one.
September in Chicago is, in the opinion of anyone who has spent time there, the best month the city has. The humidity has broken. The lake is still warm. The light is golden by four o'clock. But the logistics — the traffic on I-290, the hotel compression in the Loop, the difference between a car that moves and a car that sits — that is the part that does not fit on a ticket.
This is the work we do. The right hotel before the city fills. The car that actually gets you to the gates and back without a ninety-minute parking lot on the expressway. The dinner reservation in the West Loop that was never going to be available on an app. The routing that respects the fact that you are here for the golf, not for the commute.
How we think about it
- The grounds before the gates tighten. Practice rounds, early-week sessions, the days when the property is open and the players are accessible and the crowds have not yet arrived in full. These are the days insiders build the week around.
- Hospitality sourced through relationships. The Presidents Cup hospitality structures — the chalets, the clubs, the on-course experiences — are available, and they are secured through the people who hold them, not through a button on a website the week of the event.
- The Chicago week, built end to end. The hotel, the car, the dinners, the routing in and out of Medinah. One itinerary, one point of contact, and a week that runs while you watch golf.
- The option to stay the weekend. Sunday singles at Medinah, with the atmosphere and the history and a city that is at its best — that is a day worth being on the grounds for.
The point
One week. Two teams. A format that turns the most individual sport in the world into something you watch the way you watch a playoff series. A course where a Sunday already rewrote itself once. A city at its best month.
Whether you want the quiet access of the early rounds or the full Sunday spectacle, we're here to make the whole week easy — the right accommodations, the right grounds access, the car that actually moves, the dinners that were never going to be a tap on a phone. Reach out and we'll help you build the week.
