MONTREAL — The journey is 30 years old and counting. The Presidents Cup has come a long way since those early days when there was much confusion about whether such an event could even be sustained, especially in the shadow of the more popular and wildly successful Ryder Cup.

The tournament, which will be held for the 15th time this week and opens Thursday at Royal Montreal, has overcome some questionable moments, none more telling than when most of the press left the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Virginia on the eve of the final day of a tight match in 1996 to chase a 20-year-old kid named Tiger Woods, who had taken the lead after 54 holes in the Quad Cities Open.

Two years later, when the tournament was to be held outside the United States for the first time and moved to Australia, Hall of Fame member and former Ryder Cup player and U.S. captain Lanny Wadkins joked that he thought it was stupid that a group of Americans would travel “half way around the world just to play a bunch of guys from Orlando.”

Perhaps this indifference rubbed off on the American team, who were routed at Royal Melbourne by 20½ to 11½.

It is the only U.S. loss in a contest that has turned into a one-sided match. The Americans have won nine straight, leading to a simple question: Do you care?

The PGA Tour’s regular season ended three weeks ago, the NFL and college football are dominating, and major league baseball is wrapping up its regular season.

Canadian golf fans will no doubt be out in full force this week, with the international team captained by Canada’s only champion, Mike Weir, looking to end a run of disappointments dating back to a December tournament in Australia 26 years ago.

But if the Americans don’t lose in the end…

“The difference is there was no competition,” said 44-year-old Australian Adam Scott, who has played in every Presidents Cup since 2003. “I have to say it was very tough on our team. There were some close games for our team from 2005, 2003 and 2015. There is a gap. Even in Melbourne (in 2019) we were leading in the last round.

“I’m very strict, but in terms of what’s on paper, we lost a lot. That’s why there was no spark. There was no spark like in the Ryder Cup. I think it’s very enticing to watch. That’s probably the difference… I hope we can put together a really dangerous team this year.”

It’s hard to fathom that Scott, the 2013 Masters champion, would be playing in his 11th Presidents Cup for an international team and has never won. He was part of the 2003 team that played a thrilling match in South Africa, where Woods and Ernie Els played three sudden-death playoffs to try to decide a winner before captains Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player agreed to share the Cup.

Since then, the Americans have had nine straight victories, including several crushing defeats that have made it difficult for the event to gain any popularity.

In terms of popularity and prestige, the Presidents Cup lags behind the prestigious event it is modelled on, largely because of its lack of history. The Ryder Cup has more than 80 years of tradition, a fair amount of bad blood between the participants and an intensity born of the immense pride of the European Union, which has not lost a home match since 1993 and sent the Americans reeling again in Rome last year.

The Presidents Cup may never match the Ryder Cup, but it is a premier international golf event that was born three decades ago out of a need to provide players outside the United States and Europe with an experience comparable to the Ryder Cup.

Players of the era, like Greg Norman, Nick Price and Ernie Els, were on the outside looking in. And since the PGA Tour had no stake in the Ryder Cup (apart from the seven-figure check it receives from the PGA of America for television rights), it made sense to establish something similar.

The Presidents Cup has certain features that set it apart from the Ryder Cup, some of which may attract greater interest.

Instead of two sessions of eight matches played over the first two days of the Ryder Cup, the Presidents Cup is played over four days, starting with five matches on Thursday and Friday.

The Presidents Cup also allows captains to make more or less intriguing lineups if they so desire.

While in the Ryder Cup, pairings are made without knowledge of the other side’s order or groups, in the Presidents’ Cup, the captains take turns fielding players. Such was the case for Weir in the Sunday singles in 2007 at Royal Montreal, where Weir took the lead despite the team’s overall defeat.

1998 also saw Norman go head-to-head with Woods at Royal Melbourne, which was arguably the highlight of the final day of competition as Woods defeated Norman in his home country.

However, these aspects did not compensate for the uneven results.

One factor that cannot be ignored is the fact that the PGA Tour has complete control over the Presidents Cup. There has always been a sense at the Ryder Cup that the Europeans are playing for their tour (hence the membership requirement) and how important that is to the overall well-being of the current DP World Tour.

The event is a huge source of revenue for the DP World Tour, especially when matches are held in Europe, allowing it to subsidise the Tour in years when there is no Ryder Cup.

There is less of a competitive drive at the Presidents Cup, although that is not for lack of trying on the part of the international players, who have been trying to gain some independence from the Tour and have slowly been gaining some concessions.

One was five years ago in Australia, when Els, as captain, was given the opportunity to brand the Presidents Cup slightly differently, using only the team logo and shield. The idea was to give the players something more to play for, an identity that couldn’t be replicated like in Europe or the United States.

Another was to reduce the total points from 34 to 30. Internationals would prefer to see 28 — like the Ryder Cup — because it remains difficult to compete with American depth.

“I think in Melbourne, for the first time, we had the advantage of the crowd,” Scott said. “Creating our shield and putting it out there was also important. We identified something. It wasn’t just a group of guys. I think that was helpful. I played in the Canadian Open this year (in May) and I was really impressed with the support and I feel like it’s going to be strong for our team.”

It also needed a strong backing within it. Jason Day, who played in his first Presidents Cup in 2011, admitted he wasn’t always fully engaged. It’s an individual sport, he said. The team aspect didn’t impress him much.

Day, who missed the 2016 Olympics when he was the world number one, had a similar change of heart about that competition, where he finished ninth in Paris last month.

“You talk to the Europeans, how badly they want to beat the Americans, and there’s that rivalry there, you can feel it and you can hear it when they talk about it,” Day said of the Ryder Cup. “It’s also America versus Europe. I feel like the way the guys look at it, I think that’s changed here. I think they’re very determined and passionate about this tournament now. Like I look at Ben (An) and Tom (Kim) now, there are guys there who – like young guys all the way up to the top guys.

“When you have the experience of Adam Scott, you hear them talking, and I think this is his 11th, so he’s been losing for a long time. You can hear how badly he wants to win. I think one is enough. If we can get one, I think it will change things a little bit.”

The presence of three Canadians — MacKenzie Hughes, Corey Conners and Taylor Pendrith — on the home side should help. The team also includes four South Koreans (An, Tom Kim, Si Woo Kim and Sungjae Im), Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, South Africa’s Christiaan Bezuidenhout, and Australians Scott and Day join Min Woo Lee.

“I think we have a better system,” Scott said. “Looking at the team this year, I think I can be the leader on the course as well as I am indoors. Hideki has to be that guy, too. This is his sixth Presidents Cup. As well as I know Hideki, it’s up to me to make sure he understands that if he gives it his all this year, it will galvanize everyone. I think that burden can be shared. I don’t think it’s all on my shoulders.”

Interestingly, since the inception of the Presidents Cup in 1994, the United States has dominated international teams composed of outstanding players 12–1–1, while in the Ryder Cup against Europe they have scored just 4–10.

Perhaps nothing illustrates this disparity more clearly than U.S. captain Jim Furyk’s own record. In the Presidents’ Cup, Furyk, at age 54, was 20–10–3 in seven appearances. He was 10–20–4 in nine Ryder Cups, playing on just two winning teams.

He also drew criticism for captaining the losing U.S. team in the 2018 Ryder Cup, as did Zach Johnson last year, which shows how passionate the event is.

There haven’t been many international captains called upon to answer for their teams’ defeats. Even Nicklaus — the only U.S. captain to lose the Presidents’ Cup and the first U.S. captain to lose on home soil at the 1987 Ryder Cup — has avoided negative backlash.

“I think guys put a lot of pressure on themselves (in the Ryder Cup),” Furyk said. “They try a little too hard. They push themselves in the Ryder Cup. They want to prove everyone wrong, and sometimes when you try too hard, you get in your own way, if that makes sense.

“What always disappointed me about our era, when we were accused as Americans, it was easy to say we just didn’t care. I saw grown men crying in the locker room after some of these things. That always frustrated me, but there’s not much you can do about it. I think we’re playing a little looser, we’re playing a little more freely in this event.”

Interest in the Ryder Cup didn’t really pick up until the U.S. started losing. In 1983, when Nicklaus captained the team at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, it was the first time the event was televised nationally in the United States—and on a delayed basis.

Two years later, the Europeans won for the first time since Great Britain and Ireland won in 1957. They had drawn in 1969. Then Europe won again in 1987, drew in 1989 and went on a run that has produced three-match winning streaks twice in the last 30 years.

And the Ryder Cup is now one of the biggest, if not the biggest, this biggest events in the game.

The Presidents Cup demands something approaching that level of intensity and interest.

The Americans may have to lose for the event to gain that momentum.