Assessing Home-Field Advantage in the Presidents Cup: Impact on Competitive Balance and Team Performance

Assessing Home-Field Advantage in the Presidents Cup: Impact on Competitive Balance and Team Performance Collin Kneiss, Hunter Geise, Charlotte Howland Justin Ehrlich Falk College of Sport, Syracuse University, 150 Crouse Dr, Syracuse, NY 13244 Abstract The Presidents Cup provides a unique setting to analyze home-field advantage (HFA) in a two-team competition with zero-sum scoring. Our analysis identifies a statistically significant HFA differential of 4.13 points, corresponding to a 2.07-point advantage per team. Although the event alternates host locations, this advantage does not fully offset the overall scoring disparity once ability differences are controlled for, suggesting that contextual factors—such as team cohesion within Team USA—may shape competitive balance. At the player level, we find no evidence that golfers perform above or below their Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) in Presidents Cup play, with a non-significant coefficient estimated near zero. This reflects the inherent randomness of golf from shot to shot, hole to hole, and round to round. While OWGR effectively captures long-term ability, it is a poor predictor of short-term, round-level performance. After accounting for HFA and ability differences, we estimate that Team USA holds a significant 3.24-point advantage over Team International, corresponding to a 6.47-point swing in overall differential. These findings highlight the enduring impact of HFA in the Presidents Cup and underscore the importance of team chemistry and leadership in shaping outcomes in international team-based golf competitions. Key Words: Presidents Cup, Home-Field Advantage, Team Performance 1. Introduction “The win is the 10th straight for the American side and pushes their all-time Presidents Cup record to 13-1-1. It has now been 26 years since the International team claimed their lone win in the event, and 21 years since Team USA did not walk away the outright victors.” – GOLF.com (Melton 2024). The Presidents Cup has long been a showcase of elite golf talent, but the results have told a one-sided story. While both teams feature world-class players, the United States has established a near-monopoly on success, winning 13 of the 15 contests since the event’s inception in 1994. With ten consecutive victories and only one International win in nearly three decades, questions arise about what drives this dominance — and whether home-field advantage alone can explain it. This study focuses on three key areas of analysis within the Presidents Cup. First, it quantifies the existence and magnitude of home-field advantage (HFA) and evaluates how much playing on home soil contributes to match outcomes. Second, it determines whether golfers on Team USA or International will play above or below their Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) during the Presidents Cup. Last, it investigates whether Team USA demonstrates a team-level performance advantage beyond what would be expected from individual player rankings. 1.1 Background Literature Although academic research specifically focused on the Presidents Cup is limited, a range of studies examining golfer performance in relation to course familiarity and home advantage offer valuable context. Sprengel (2022) argued that the types of golf courses players grow up on significantly influence how well they perform on different styles of courses. For example, European players often perform better on European courses due to their familiarity with local conditions, just as American golfers tend to fare better on home soil. This idea underpins Sprengel’s belief in a distinct home course advantage in events like the Ryder Cup, where, at the time of his study, host nations had won 68% of the competitions. Through a model predicting U.S. victory probabilities based on variables like course length and slope, Sprengel found that U.S. teams were 4.4% more likely to win at home compared to playing abroad. When simplifying the model to consider only the location (U.S. or not), the home advantage effect jumped to 34.2%. Nevill et al. (1997) examined whether European golfers performed better in their home major (the Open Championship) compared to American-hosted majors. Controlling for world ranking, they found no substantial difference in performance between regions. However, the study did uncover that players receiving special invitations, such as sponsor exemptions, tended to outperform their rankings when playing at home, a trend most apparent at the U.S. Open. More recent work supports the importance of course familiarity across ability levels. O’Brien (2024) showed that both scratch golfers and high-handicap players performed significantly worse on unfamiliar courses, with scoring differentials rising by 2–3 strokes. Similarly, Heath (2023), using Arccos shot-tracking data, found that players on a new course were substantially more likely to post negative strokes-gained results, with 55% losing at least one stroke relative to their baseline performance. Extending this concept to elite team golf, Ehrlich et al. (2025) reported that in the Ryder Cup, home-field advantage produced a 4.08-point swing (from –2.04 to 2.04 points) in overall scoring differential. Alongside course familiarity, player ability is benchmarked through the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR), which is a globally recognized system used to rank male professional golfers based on their performance in eligible tournaments over a rolling two-year period. The system assigns points based on tournament strength, finishing position, and recency of results, with the most recent performances weighted more heavily (OWGR 2025). Each event has a "strength of field" rating that determines the number of ranking points available. Rankings are calculated using a divisor that reflects the number of events played, with a minimum divisor of 40 and a maximum of 52 to balance participation with performance. Players are then ordered by their average points per event, producing the world ranking list that is updated weekly (Dabbs, 2024). These rankings play a central role in Presidents Cup team selection—particularly for Team International. The top six eligible International players (outside Europe) qualify based on an OWGR points list, with six captain’s picks added. For Team USA, six automatic qualifiers are determined by a FedExCup points list accumulated through the BMW Championship, with the remaining six chosen by the captain (PGA Tour, 2024). Figure 1 presents density plots illustrating the difference in performance ability between automatic qualifiers and captain’s picks. Notably, the density distributions suggest that Team USA’s captain’s picks are roughly as strong as Team International’s automatic qualifiers. Figure 1: Automatic Qualifiers versus Picks 2. Methodology To evaluate the presence of home-field advantage (HFA) in the Presidents Cup, we compiled data from Wikipedia, which reported both the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR) for each participating golfer and the final team points totals. Summary statistics for the dataset are presented in Table 1. Team ability was operationalized through a measure we term world golf ability, defined as the mean of reciprocal ranks (1/rank) across players. This approach places greater weight on highly ranked golfers, reflecting the non-linear nature of performance in golf. We also computed differences in this ability measure across teams to capture relative talent levels. To examine the effects of HFA, team identity, and relative ability, we estimated a series of three linear models. The general specification is shown as formula 1. Point differential =β0+β1⋅wg_ability_mean_difference+ β2⋅(team:wg_ability_mean_difference)+β3 ⋅team + β4⋅home_away +ϵ (1) Where: ● β0 is the intercept. ● β1, β2, β3, and β4 are the coefficients for the respective terms. ● ϵ is the error term. Importantly, we did not interact team identity with home-field advantage. In a two-team zerosum competition such as the Presidents Cup, HFA is defined as a team’s home score minus its away score; by construction, it is symmetrical between the two teams. Using the generalized specification, we estimate models that predict point differential, which reflects the swing in outcomes. Because the competition is zero-sum, any gain of x points by one team implies a loss of x points by the other, resulting in a 2x-point swing in differential. Figure 2 illustrates this zero-sum structure. We estimate three models: (1) a baseline model including HFA and mean world golf ability, (2) a model interacting mean world golf ability with team, and (3) a fully specified model that incorporates a team fixed effect. Factors are coded with United States as the baseline team and away as the baseline for home_away. Table 1: Summary Statistics Variables N Mean Std. Dev. Min Pctl. 25 Pctl. 75 Max point_difference 30 0.000 5.837 -11.000 -4.750 4.750 11.000 wg_ability_mean_difference 30 -0.000 0.112 -0.164 -0.098 0.098 0.164 home_away 30 ... away 15 50.0% ... home 15 50.0% team 30 ... United States 15 50.0% ... International 15 50.0% Figure 2: Home Field Advantage Symmetry. In a zero-sum format, each point gained by one team is a two-point swing in differential 3. Results In Table 2, we present the estimated coefficients from the linear models described in Formula 1. Given the limited number of events, standard errors were clustered on year but results should be interpreted with caution. Model 1 serves as the baseline specification, including world golf ability (mean WG Ability) and home–away fixed effects. Here, we find a statistically significant home-field advantage differential of 4.84 points, corresponding to a 2.42-point advantage per team (since the home team gains 2.42 points while the away team loses 2.42, producing the 4.84-point swing). The intercept of −2.42 represents the expected point differential for the reference category (the away team, when ability difference is zero). This provides the baseline against which the home–away swing is estimated. Model 1 explains roughly 39% of the variation in point differential. Model 2 introduces an interaction between world golf ability (WG Ability) mean difference and team identity. This term is not statistically significant, with a coefficient indistinguishable from zero, indicating that relative team ability does not vary systematically by team. Like Model 1, Model 2 explains roughly 39% of the variation in point differential. Model 3 incorporates team fixed effects and shows that the International team underperformed relative to Team USA by 6.47 points, a statistically significant disadvantage. As explained in the methodology, we do not interact team identity with HFA since, by definition in a two-team zero-sum setting, HFA is symmetrical. In this model, the estimated swing in home-field advantage is 4.13 points, corresponding to a 2.07-point per-team HFA. The wg_ability_mean_difference is significant in Models 1 and 2 (~25.28), but it becomes insignificant in Model 3 (~2.68, not significant). This decline is expected because once a team fixed effect is included, the remaining variation in ability difference doesn’t explain the differential scoring conditional on team. The intercept of 1.17 represents the expected point differential for the reference category (Team USA away, with no ability difference), providing the baseline from which the home–away swing and International team effects are measured. Model 3 explains roughly 52% of the variation in point differential. Figure 3 visualizes these results by showing the marginal effects of both home–away status and team fixed effects from Model 3, highlighting the joint impact of HFA and systematic team differences. Table 2: Point Differential Linear Models using Clustered (on year) Robust Standard Errors Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Predictors Estimates CI p Estimates CI p Estimates CI p (Intercept) -2.42 -4.71 – -0.13 0.04 -2.42 -4.72 – -0.13 0.04 1.17 -1.88 – 4.22 0.44 home away [home] 4.84 0.26 – 9.42 0.04 4.84 0.25 – 9.43 0.04 4.13 0.19 – 8.08 0.04 wg ability mean difference 25.28 2.07 – 48.48 0.03 25.28 2.03 – 48.52 0.03 2.68 -26.38 – 31.75 0.85 wg ability mean difference × teamInternational -0.00 -0.00 – 0.00 0.76 team [International] -6.47 -11.62 – -1.32 0.02 Observations 30 30 30 R2 / R2 adjusted 0.392 / 0.347 0.392 / 0.322 0.520 / 0.464 4. Discussion 4.1 Home Field Advantage Our first question asked whether the Presidents Cup exhibits a home-field advantage. Model 1 provides strong evidence that the home team enjoys a statistically significant 4.84-point swing, equivalent to a 2.42-point per-team edge. This result aligns with prior findings in Ryder Cup contexts (Sprengel, 2022), suggesting that course setup and familiarity with local conditions meaningfully enhance team performance. 4.2 Americans Playing Compared to Ability The second question considered whether golfers outperform or underperform relative to their Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR). Model 2 shows no significant slope difference between Team USA and Team International, implying that Presidents Cup outcomes are not systematically driven by players outperforming or underperforming their long-term ability rankings. 4.3 Cohesive Team Level Advantage Finally, we examined whether Team USA benefits from a cohesive team-level advantage beyond individual ability. Model 3 reveals that, after controlling for HFA and ability, Team USA holds a 3.24-point edge, corresponding to a 6.47-point swing in differential relative to Team International. This suggests that structural or cultural factors, such as team chemistry, leadership, or familiarity with match-play formats, provide the United States with a persistent advantage. Figure 3: LM Team and Home Marginal Effects 5. Conclusion The goal of this paper was to evaluate competitive imbalances in the Presidents Cup by analyzing home-field advantage (HFA), performance relative to ability, and team-level parity. Using three linear regression models with fixed effects, we incorporated home–away status, differences in world golf ability as measured by the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR), and team effects. In our most controlled model, our analysis provides evidence of a statistically significant 4.13-point swing attributable to HFA, which corresponds to a 2.07-point HFA. This finding supports the notion that crowd effects, course setup, and local familiarity provide a meaningful edge to the host team. When testing whether players outperform or underperform relative to OWGR, the results showed a non-significant coefficient near zero, indicating that round-to-round variance in golf outweighs predictive ability at the individual level. Finally, after controlling for ability and HFA, we estimate a 6.47-point swing in favor of Team USA, consistent with a systematic team-level advantage. This suggests that cohesion, leadership, and shared experience contribute to superior collective performance compared to Team International. Taken together, these results highlight two persistent structural factors in the Presidents Cup: (i) a home-field swing of nearly five points, and (ii) a U.S. team-level swing exceeding six points regardless of venue. While the International team remains competitive, the combination of HFA and cohesion provides Team USA with a durable advantage. 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