The Presidents Cup has been played in the United States eight times, and the International team has gone home empty-handed eight times. The closest it came was a one-point loss in 1996. On Thursday at 11:35 a.m. CT, Geoff Ogilvy's side tees off at Medinah to try a ninth time, with three first-time captain's picks, no Jason Day and none of the LIV stars it used to lean on, against an American team that has not lost this event since 1998. Kalshi prices the upset at about 15%. The order flow is louder than the price: underdog buyers have been piling in since Sunday night, and on Monday morning somebody answered them with roughly $47,000 on Team USA inside a single hour.
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Kalshi Makes The Upset A 15 Percent Shot
Kalshi's winner market (ticker KXPRESCUP-26), fetched Monday, September 21, at about 7:30 p.m. ET. Kalshi labels the Internationals "Team World." The contracts settle once the result is official on Sunday, September 27, only one of them pays, and a 15-15 finish pays the tie contract and neither team.
| Outcome | Yes Bid | Yes Ask | Contracts Traded | Open Interest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team USA | 81¢ | 82¢ | 111,647 | 109,248 |
| Internationals (Team World) | 14¢ | 16¢ | 43,501 | 39,800 |
| Tie | 4¢ | 5¢ | 13,248 | 10,552 |
The three asks add up to 103¢ and the three bids to 99¢, so the honest read sits between them: take the midpoints, scale them to 100, and the board says roughly 81% USA, 15% Internationals and 4.5% tie. The mechanics are in how prediction markets work and our guide to Kalshi odds. The sportsbooks are kinder to the underdog. FanDuel and DraftKings both hang -400 on the U.S. and +350 on the Internationals, with the tie at +1000 and +1400, and once their margin comes out the books give Ogilvy's team about 20%. The exchange is five points less willing to believe. It is also a much busier market than it was a week ago: lifetime volume has gone from about 40,300 contracts to about 168,400, and 98,000 of those came in the last 24 hours. Readers new to trading golf on an exchange can start with how to bet golf on Kalshi.
Eight Trips To America, Eight Losses
Every Presidents Cup played on U.S. soil, per the event's full results:
| Year | Course | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Robert Trent Jones GC | USA 20–12 |
| 1996 | Robert Trent Jones GC | USA 16½–15½ |
| 2000 | Robert Trent Jones GC | USA 21½–10½ |
| 2005 | Robert Trent Jones GC | USA 18½–15½ |
| 2009 | Harding Park | USA 19½–14½ |
| 2013 | Muirfield Village | USA 18½–15½ |
| 2017 | Liberty National | USA 19–11 |
| 2022 | Quail Hollow | USA 17½–12½ |
Three of those were genuinely close, and none of them recently. The last two American editions were decided by eight and five points. The Internationals' only Presidents Cup win came at Royal Melbourne in 1998, the 2003 match at Fancourt ended level, and the U.S. has won all ten since, including 18½–11½ at Royal Montreal in 2024, on the Internationals' own side of the border. An underdog price at Medinah is not the market being cruel; it is the market reading 30 years of results.
The Case For An International Upset
The best argument is the format. Thirty one-point matches over four days is a long series of coin flips weighted toward the better team, and weighted coins still land wrong in bunches. A team that wins one early session by three or four points changes the whole week, and the Internationals need 15½ points, not a better roster.
The top of Ogilvy's roster can carry sessions. Hideki Matsuyama and Adam Scott are both Masters champions, and Scott qualified on his own at 46. Si Woo Kim, Tom Kim and Sungjae Im give him three Koreans who know each other's games.
And the money is not all going one way. In the hour after 10 p.m. ET on Sunday, about 7,700 contracts of the Internationals changed hands at 18¢ and 19¢, the largest a 3,802-contract buy at 19¢, matching the underdog's high since the rosters were set. Another 19,000 traded on Monday, 92% of them buyers lifting the offer. Open interest on the underdog has gone from about 11,500 to about 39,800 in a week, which means nearly every one of those contracts is a new position somebody intends to hold, not the same position changing hands.
The Case Against: $47,000 On Team USA In One Hour
Then there is the other side of the tape. In the hour after 7 a.m. ET on Monday, about 58,000 Team USA contracts crossed at 81¢ and 82¢, 99% of them buyers, including four prints of exactly 10,000 contracts at 7:08 a.m. The tape cannot say whether that was one account, but it was about $47,000 in one hour, following roughly $19,700 in two prints at 81¢ on Friday afternoon. Since September 15, open interest on the favorite has gone from about 14,900 contracts to about 109,200. That buying moved the U.S. ask from 81¢ to 82¢, and on the same day the Internationals fell from 19¢ to a 15¢ last trade even with buyers on their side. The timing is not proof of cause, but two contracts on the same event cannot both get more expensive for long.
The roster supports the whale. Snedeker's three veteran picks, per the PGA Tour's announcement, bring Xander Schauffele at 10-4-0 in this event without a singles loss, Justin Thomas at 10-3-2 with a perfect 6-0-0 in four-ball, and Patrick Cantlay at 10-4-0, with Scottie Scheffler at the top of the lineup. Ogilvy, meanwhile, left Day home with a back injury he had been nursing since the U.S. Open, and could not pick LIV players such as Cameron Smith or Joaquin Niemann at all under PGA Tour rules; he said he asked the Tour several times to make an exception. His six picks split three veterans and three debutants.
Nobody has withdrawn from either side. Kalshi's 20-golfer roster board, which once swung on whether 21-year-old Jackson Koivun would get a pick, has traded about 130 contracts in six days, and his contract still sits at 95¢ bid.
| Team USA (Brandt Snedeker) | International Team (Geoff Ogilvy) |
|---|---|
| Scottie Scheffler | Si Woo Kim (South Korea) |
| Cameron Young | Ryan Fox (New Zealand) |
| Wyndham Clark | Hideki Matsuyama (Japan) |
| Russell Henley | Min Woo Lee (Australia) |
| Sam Burns | Tom Kim (South Korea) |
| Collin Morikawa | Adam Scott (Australia) |
| Chris Gotterup (Pick) | Corey Conners (Canada, pick) |
| Xander Schauffele (Pick) | Nico Echavarria (Colombia, pick) |
| Justin Thomas (Pick) | Sungjae Im (South Korea, pick) |
| Patrick Cantlay (Pick) | Ryo Hisatsune (Japan, pick) |
| Jacob Bridgeman (Pick) | Nick Taylor (Canada, pick) |
| Jackson Koivun (Pick) | Christiaan Bezuidenhout (South Africa, pick) |
If You Believe In The Upset, Kalshi Pays Better
The exchange's lower opinion of the Internationals is exactly what makes it the better place to back them. One hundred contracts at the 16¢ ask cost $16.00, plus Kalshi's trading fee of 0.07 × contracts × price × (1 − price), $0.95 here, for $16.95 all-in. An International win pays $100, a profit of $83.05, or about 4.9 to 1. The same $16.95 at +350 profits $59.33. On the underdog, the exchange pays about 40% more than the books do.
The favorite runs the other way. One hundred Team USA contracts at 82¢ cost $83.04 with fees and profit $16.96 if the U.S. wins, about 20%; the same stake at -400 profits $20.76, or 25%. A tie at the 5¢ ask costs $5.34 all-in and profits $94.66, close to 18 to 1, against +1400 at DraftKings and +1000 at FanDuel. The full fee schedule is on our Kalshi fees page, our live odds screen lines up the sportsbook side, and the implied-probability math is the tiebreaker whenever the two venues disagree.
One more difference matters for an upset bet specifically. Kalshi is an exchange, not a sportsbook, so a 16¢ International contract bought on Wednesday can be sold on Saturday night if Ogilvy's team is leading, without waiting to see whether the lead survives Sunday singles. Kalshi operates as a CFTC-regulated exchange, and where you can legally trade is worth two minutes before a first order. Every price here is a quote from Monday evening; check the one you are actually offered.
When Every Session Tees Off
Times from the official schedule of events, which lists local Central time and notes that the format of play is subject to change. Pairings had not been announced as of Monday.
| Day | Session | Matches | Tee Window (CT) | Tee Window (ET) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thu, Sept 24 | Round 1 | 5 | 11:35 a.m.–12:47 p.m. | 12:35–1:47 p.m. |
| Fri, Sept 25 | Round 2 | 5 | 1:05–2:01 p.m. | 2:05–3:01 p.m. |
| Sat, Sept 26 | Round 3 | 4 | 7:02–7:56 a.m. | 8:02–8:56 a.m. |
| Sat, Sept 26 | Round 4 | 4 | 1:15–1:57 p.m. | 2:15–2:57 p.m. |
| Sun, Sept 27 | Singles | 12 | 11:02 a.m.–1:19 p.m. | 12:02–2:19 p.m. |
The teams practice Tuesday and Wednesday, the opening ceremony starts 30 minutes before Thursday's first tee, and Golf Channel and NBC carry all four days. Thirty points are available and 15½ wins it outright. The Kalshi board keeps trading through every session, so the price at the turn on Saturday will say more about the upset than anything written before Thursday.
The daily Kalshi picks hub grades a board like this one every morning, and the free expert picks hub covers golf when the calendar cooperates.
The Internationals Need One Saturday
The upset does not require the Internationals to be better for four days. It requires one good session and a Sunday where the lead holds, the exact thing that has not happened in eight tries on American soil. The market has watched all eight and charges 16¢ for a ninth. But the last time an American team walked onto Medinah's Course No. 3 on a Sunday morning, at the 2012 Ryder Cup, it led 10-6 and lost 14½-13½.
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