Presidents Cup 2026 Watch Guide: Every Session at Medinah
Tee times, TV, and the scoring explained for all four days at Medinah — plus the session that actually settled the last Presidents Cup, and the myth about the International team worth dropping before Friday.
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Thirty points are available at Medinah this week. A team needs 15.5 to win the Presidents Cup, and the whole thing starts at 12:35 p.m. Eastern on Thursday.
Below is every session, what it is worth, and where to find it. Then the part most guides skip: which day actually decides this, and one widely repeated claim about the International team that our own numbers say is wrong.
The four days
The 16th Presidents Cup runs Thursday, September 24 through Sunday, September 27 at Medinah Country Club’s Course No. 3, outside Chicago. Session times below are from the published broadcast schedule.
| Day | Format | Matches | Start (ET) | Where |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thu 24 | Four-ball | 5 | 12:35 p.m. | Golf Channel |
| Fri 25 | Foursomes | 5 | 2:05 p.m. | Golf Channel |
| Sat 26 a.m. | Four-ball | 4 | 8:02 a.m. | Golf Channel |
| Sat 26 p.m. | Foursomes | 4 | 2:15 p.m. | NBC · Peacock |
| Sun 27 | Singles | 12 | 12:02 p.m. | NBC · Peacock |
Four-ball is better ball. Both players play their own ball and the team takes the lower score, so it rewards birdies and lets one player attack while the other stays safe.
Foursomes is alternate shot. One ball per team, players alternating, and it is the format where a bad drive becomes your partner’s problem. It is also the shortest session to watch and the most nervous to play.
Singles on Sunday is all twelve players from each side, one against one. Every match is worth the same single point as every other match all week.
Saturday is the heaviest day: eight matches across two sessions, starting just after 8 a.m. Eastern. If you can only watch one day live, take this one — it is where a lead gets built or a comeback starts.
What 15.5 means, and what happens at 15–15
Every match is worth one point. Win it and you get the point; halve it and each side takes half. With 30 points on the board, 15.5 wins the Cup.
A 15–15 tie does not go to the defending champion. That is a Ryder Cup rule, and it gets applied to this event constantly. In the Presidents Cup a tie really is a tie, and both teams share the trophy for two years.
It has happened once, in 2003, and there is no plausible world in which either captain plays for it.
The myth worth dropping before Friday
You will hear on Friday that foursomes is the International team’s historic weakness — that alternate shot punishes a side drawn from a dozen countries and tours, because they lack the reps together.
It is a tidy story. The last edition says the opposite.
At Royal Montreal in 2024, the United States swept Thursday four-ball 5–0. The International team swept Friday foursomes 5–0 straight back. Saturday split 3–1 each way, and seven matches reached the 18th hole.
They still lost 18.5–11.5. The margin came on Sunday.
The International team’s problem at Royal Montreal was not alternate shot. It was twelve singles matches against a deeper roster.
That is a depth problem, not a chemistry one, and it points your attention at a different day. We went through the full picture in our piece on the International team’s twenty-eight-year drought, including what Geoff Ogilvy has changed about the roster to address it.
So watch Friday for the golf. Watch Sunday for the result.
One more thing about the golf course
Medinah is playing a rearranged routing this week. The Cup starts on the members’ fifth hole, and the water holes along Lake Kadijah — normally 16, 17 and 18 — have been moved up to 12, 13 and 14 so that live matches actually reach them.
The practical effect for a viewer: when a broadcaster says “the 12th,” that is the diagonal carry across the lake, and it is the best hole on the property. We broke down the rebuilt course and where the matches should turn in our Medinah course guide.
Make it a group thing
The easiest way to get a group of friends to follow four days of match play is a pick’em, decided before Thursday.
Simplest version: everyone predicts a final score, closest wins. More involved: pick every match, one point each, settled after Sunday singles. Either takes about five minutes to set up and gives the Saturday morning session — which starts at 8 a.m. Eastern and is otherwise easy to sleep through — a reason to be awake.
If you would rather play against something that cannot argue with you, the model plays Fantasy and Survivor every stroke-play week on the same leaderboards as everyone else, with its picks published when entries lock.
Thirty points, four days, one number worth remembering: 15.5. If the board is still close when the twelve singles matches go out on Sunday afternoon, you will be watching the session that settled Royal Montreal.