What Smylie Kaufman thinks Brandt Snedeker had planned for Jackson Koivun before J.J. Spaun’s injury

Smylie Kaufman believes that Jackson Koivun would still have made the Presidents Cup team even if J.J. Spaun had been fit and received a pick from Brandt Snedeker.

It was Koivun who made most of the headlines after Snedeker confirmed his six picks for Medinah later this month.

The 21-year-old failed to make it past the first FedEx Cup playoff event after only turning professional earlier in the season. Nevertheless, he did manage to win the 3M Open ahead of Scottie Scheffler.

With that, Snedeker saw enough to hand Koivun his final pick for the Presidents Cup. Elsewhere, Chris Gotterup, Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay, Justin Thomas, and Jacob Bridgeman were also chosen.

That meant that both Ben Griffin and J.J. Spaun missed out, having finished in the top 12 qualifying spots.

Smylie Kaufman thinks Jackson Koivun was always going to make the Presidents Cup team

Griffin has struggled for form throughout 2026, while Spaun withdrew from the Tour Championship due to injury.

Interestingly, speaking on The Smylie Show, Smylie Kaufman predicted that Koivun would have made the team even if Spaun had been available.

“My theory is I think Jackson Koivun was on the team [before J.J. Spaun got injured]. J.J. Spaun I think was a player a lot of guys had on their team, based on him winning on the PGA Tour, being on the Ryder Cup team this past year, and really, making the Tour Championship. I thought it was a fairly solid year for J.J., and I wanted to see more from him in these team rooms, to see exactly how he would stack up in these formats,” he said.

“He didn’t get a great at bat I would say at the Ryder Cup, I think only playing a couple of times. So his injury obviously was huge in that pick process, but my take was that Koivun was on the team and maybe Bridgeman would have been potentially the guy that would have been out.

“Let’s just say J.J. was going to be on the team if he was healthy, I think Koivun’s still on the team. I still feel like that was his initiative this whole time was to get this guy on the team, and frankly I love it.

“Now that’s just a gut feel on the way I think the team lays out, because he went very veteran heavy. I think a lot of people have issues with maybe the Xander, the JT, or the Patrick Cantlay pick. I think you could have made an argument that if you wanted to really lean into the young guys, you pick one of those guys, and then you have two of those guys off the team, and then you would have gone a different direction with a Ryan Gerard, and then maybe somebody else that’s young.”

The player Smylie Kaufman would not have picked for the Presidents Cup

Snedeker will be desperate to avoid becoming only the second American captain to lose at the Presidents Cup.

As Kaufman notes, he has selected a number of players with a lot of experience. Schauffele, Cantlay, and Thomas will each make their fourth appearances in the Presidents Cup this month.

It certainly seemed to be the trade-off for including the likes of Koivun and Bridgeman on the team. If things start to go wrong, Snedeker can turn to Schauffele and Cantlay and know what he can expect.

However, picking up on his previous point, Kaufman suggested that he would have probably opted to leave Cantlay out of the team on this occasion.

“I totally get Sned’s picks. Look at the records of these guys in the Presidents Cup. You can understand why Xander, Pat, and JT were all picked. But I also understand that people want to see fresh blood,” he said.

“I would have gone two of three from the Cantlay, Xander, JT group. I would have gone Xander, I would have gone JT. I would have had Cantlay sit out this year, and I would have gone Ryan Gerard. That, to me, would have been the perfect mix of 12. I can understand why Cantlay’s on the team. I can understand that he’s also huge in the team room and all these guys have respect for him, although the outside public are not in on Cantlay.”

Cantlay has the potential to find another gear in team events. He stepped up in big moments at both the 2023 Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup the following year.

However, the 34-year-old has not won on the PGA Tour in four years. He also had a pretty miserable Ryder Cup as he became the only American to lose on Sunday.

Leaving him off the team would have been risky this year. But he could have had few complaints if he had missed out.