2023 World Champions Cup Preview
The inaugural World Champions Cup begins at The Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Florida, on Thursday, where three teams filled with golfing legends will battle it out in this unique international competition.
Darren Clarke will captain Team Europe, Jim Furyk leads Team USA and South African four-time major champion Ernie Els skippers Team International.
The WCC is a three-day tournament taking place from Thursday to Sunday, with a pro-am on Saturday. The event consists of 24 nine-hole matches which involve a mix of team and singles action.
Thursday and Friday's matches feature six-balls in the morning (two players from each team playing their own ball) and Scotch sixsomes in the afternoon (two players from each team driving, the best drive is selected and then the two alternate shots from there).
Following Saturday's pro-am there will be Sunday morning and afternoon singles matches which, like the six-ball and sixsomes, will feature a unique scoring system.
The team with the lowest score on a hole is awarded two points, the second-lowest scoring team will be awarded one point and the team with the highest score receives no points.
If two or three teams are tied at the conclusion of Sunday's singles, the captains of those teams will compete in a sudden-death playoff to determine the outright winner.
Team USA are the 6/4 favourites with Team International at 9/5 and Team Europe 2/1.
Europe packed with Ryder Cup experience
Clarke, the 2011 Open champion and a five-time Ryder Cup player who also captained Europe in that competition back in 2016, takes the reins for the World Champions Cup where he leads a team packed full of recognisable names.
The evergreen Bernhard Langer, winner of the Senior US Open earlier in the season, is in the squad as is his fellow German and Senior Open champion Alex Cejka, who has become a regular competitor at Champions Tour level.
Colin Montgomerie and Miguel Angel Jimenez have a combined 12 Ryder Cups worth of experience while two-time Ryder Cup player Robert Karlsson was a runner-up alongside Team International skipper Els at the first senior major of the season, The Tradition, in May.
In-form Internationals could be the pick
Els represented the Internationals in the Presidents Cup as a player on eight occasions, including as captain in 2019, and he arrives at The Concession on a run of five top-seven finishes on the Champions Tour.
‘The Big Easy’ is a linchpin for Team International but he can call on three 2023 Champions Tour winners in Canadian Stephen Ames (four titles), New Zealand's Steven Alker (two), and Fijian Vijay Singh (one).
South Korea's KJ Choi has found form in recent starts and Els's compatriot Retief Goosen is a capable operator so big things are expected from the 9/5 shots.
Stricker the shining light for the USA
The United States receive the added benefit of hosting the World Champions Cup but captain Furyk has, somewhat surprisingly, struggled to make an impact on the Champions Tour this season and looks a potential weak link.
The same cannot be said of 2021 Ryder Cup captain Steve Stricker, who has dominated on the senior circuit by winning three majors this year and finishing runner-up in the other which he contested.
David Toms also continues to perform well on the Champions Tour and has some Ryder Cup pedigree but Jerry Kelly's sole appearance for the US came in a tied Presidents Cup match in 2003. Justin Leonard, meanwhile, has the team credentials but lacks recent form.
The US team is rounded off by two-time Champions Tour winner Brett Quigley.
Tip – Team International to win the World Champions Cup @ 9/5
As the betting suggests, the first World Champions Cup presents a tricky task for punters to decipher, not least because the format is unfamiliar in comparison to tried and tested team competitions like the Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup and Solheim Cup.
The US team have home advantage but this event is not likely to come with the bearpit nature of a Ryder Cup, so that might not count for much when the pressure ramps up on Sunday.
Europe will hope that their Ryder Cup pedigree will stand them in good stead with captain Clarke, Langer and Montgomerie, in particular, all legends of European golf due in part to their exploits in that competition.
However, the best bet could be Els and his International Team.
Els and Singh are former world number ones in an era when Tiger Woods was at the very top of the game and both are still churning out solid results on the Champions Tour. The same is true of Goosen, who won two US Opens as part of a tremendous PGA Tour career.
For all their star quality, Team International could hold two trump cards in the form of Alker and Ames, two men who had moderate but respectable PGA Tour careers before finding their niche on the senior circuit, winning 13 titles between them.
That blend of recent form and top-class experience could see Team International get over the line in what promises to be a tight competition between three high-quality sextets.
Check out the full range of golf betting odds, on our dedicated golf betting page.