The Presidents Cup has finally arrived at Medinah, with Team USA and the International Team’s best assembled. While fans are excited, J.J. Spaun was less than pleased after being left off the American team, and he wasn’t the only player to voice his frustration over missing out. One player inside the top 12 of the International team’s rankings was left off Geoff Ogilvy’s roster, and the reason largely comes down to a missing PGA Tour card. That player, 23-year-old Casey Jarvis, is now using the snub as fuel for 2028, when he’s set to have one.
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But the missing card wasn’t the only factor working against him. The missed cuts before the picks were the real culprit.
“When you don’t have a couple of good weeks, the confidence just drops completely,” he says. “You think you’re the worst player in the world. But it’s just a bad run of form. The game is there. It’s just hiding somewhere and I’m just trying to figure out where it’s hiding.”
That form cost him the pick. Ogilvy went with fellow South African Christiaan Bezuidenhout instead, citing his Presidents Cup experience. But the card issue remained the deciding factor behind Jarvis’ omission.
“He told me I wasn’t [on] the team and I don’t think there was much to say from my side,” Jarvis told Today’s Golfer about his conversation with team captain Geoff Ogilvy. “I couldn’t really say much. I just said, ‘Yes, I understand.’ And that was that. I’m supporting the boys all the way, and hopefully they can beat the US. But it definitely motivates me to get into the Presidents Cup in 2028.”
A PGA Tour card can play an important role in Presidents Cup selection because the event is operated by the American Tour. This gives its players greater visibility to captains and team leadership. For International players without a PGA Tour card, competing primarily on the DP World Tour can make the selection process more difficult.
Captains may also place value on familiarity with American course conditions and setups, and the travel and scheduling demands of international tours can limit a player’s visibility during the crucial weeks before selections. Team chemistry matters too, with captains often having more opportunities to assess and build relationships with players they regularly see competing on the PGA Tour.
“I get their perspective,” he added. “I get why they picked the PGA Tour players. They’re used to the golf out there. I’m not. It was a goal of mine, but I didn’t obviously quite play good enough to get into the team. I wasn’t expecting it, to be honest. I don’t think I’ve played enough in the States to expect it.”
The 23-year-old holds a DP World Tour card, but the European Tour’s mid-season break after the final major prevented Jarvis from immediately capitalizing on his T6 finish at The Open Championship. However, after winning four tournaments on the DP World Tour and Sunshine Tour and, more importantly, finishing inside the top 10 in the Race to Dubai standings, Jarvis is set to earn one of the 10 PGA Tour cards awarded each year to the top 10 finishers in that standings.
And because of that, the South African already has plans in place to move to the United States.
“That’s been a dream of mine since I was young,” he said. “To have a chance to achieve a dream of getting a PGA Tour card, I’m over the moon. I’m stoked to finish the season now. I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. I just want to focus on finishing the season and trying to get a couple more good results.”
Meanwhile, Geoff Ogilvy acknowledged that Jarvis was “very determined to make the team.” However, he said the demands of the European schedule can make it harder for international players to break through. He explained that when two players are performing at a similar level, captains may “lean toward the guy who plays here” because they have greater familiarity with him.
Regular PGA Tour players also spend more time around stars such as Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele and Sam Burns, creating a certain “comfort level” in a team environment. Ogilvy added that an equally talented player from Europe remains an unknown quantity in that setting, particularly when it comes to handling the pressure of stepping onto the first tee alongside established PGA Tour stars.
Regardless, this comes after J.J. Spaun said he was surprised and frustrated to be left off the U.S. Presidents Cup team. He felt that conversations with captain Brandt Snedeker had given him the impression that he would make the squad. But when he got the call from Snedeker, he was told that he was “the odd man out.”
Rather than letting the disappointment derail him, J.J. Spaun used it as motivation at the BMW PGA Championship. He admitted that he played with a “huge chip on my shoulder” because he wanted to prove he deserved a spot on the team. That said, it appears each team had a player who felt he deserved a spot on it. But only time will tell whether the captains made a mistake.