Saturday At The (Mixed) Presidents Cup
USA takes a slim lead into Sunday singles where six men's matches and six women's duels will decide the Cup.*
Another thrilling day at Royal Montreal saw the United States take a one-point lead into Sunday’s singles session. The match score stands at 12-11.
Jim Furyk and Stacy Lewis’ squad needs 5.5 of the 12 singles points on offer to retain the Presidents Cup.
Before delving into Singles snake draft antics for Sunday Singles, we’ll recap Saturday’s thrilling play that was fog-delayed by 90 minutes. But in what Pope Francis is expected to declare a miracle during his Sunday service, NBC stayed with the action until the conclusion of play.
Also of note from the long and often incredible Saturday at Royal Montreal: co-Captain Lewis confirmed conceiving the idea to have USA’s women change into their Solheim Cup red-white-and-blue for the afternoon session. Jim Furyk’s “earth tone” team uniforms looked identical to the International squad on Saturday morning when grey quarter-zips were flowing.
Lewis said the long-planned attire offended the woman when first shown to them a week ago. So she instructed her players to bring their more vibrant uniforms in case they wanted to feel more patriotic. She took the heat from Furyk and PGA Tour officials for putting USA into more lively-but-traditional colors from non-official partner brands.
“You can’t play patriotic golf dressed like you’re going to a funeral at The Villages,” Lewis said when asked by reporters about the mid-day switch. Facing heat from the bureaucrats of Ponte Vedra, Lewis referred PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan to former Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama, who all endorsed the embrace of America’s national color scheme.
Morning Foursomes: USA 3-2
Nelly Korda/Scottie Scheffler (U.S.A.) defeat Ayaka Furue/Hideki Matsuyama (INT) 4&3. Matsuyama’s putter let his partner down against the World No. 1’s, who cruised with six birdies and only one bogey.
Rose Zhang/Xander Schauffele (U.S.A.) defeat Minjee Lee/Min Woo Lee (International) 1 up. A fight to the end saw both men drive into the 18th hole lake. Zhang hit a stunning 3-wood onto the green where Schauffele sank a winning par putt to make amends for his tee shot.
Lauren Coughlin/Keegan Bradley (U.S.A.) defeat Brooke Henderson/Corey Conners (INT) 3&2. Bradley insisted after the round that he’s fine after appearing to burst a blood vessel celebrating and screaming “AMERICA” when Coughlin made the winning putt at 16.
Hannah Green/Adam Scott (INT) defeat Lilia Vu/Max Homa (U.S.A.) - Halve. Nine lead changes took place in this glorious exhibition of everything beautiful about the game: graceful swings, classy humans and sincere gratitude shown at the 18th after the fitting halve.
Megan Khang/Sahith Theegala (U.S.A.) vs. Jin Young Ko/Sungjae Im (INT) Halve. Another tie dominated by errant ball-striking and long putts made. While not as satisfying as the prior match, this one also ended with all sides showing respect for the opponents and none of the antics that only millennials could love.
Afternoon Four-ball: USA 3-2
Ruoning Yin/Byeong Hun An (INT) defeat Ally Ewing/Wyndham Clark (U.S.A.) 3&2. The Internationals opened up an early lead and never looked back in what may be Ewing’s final team match play moment days after announcing her year-end retirement.
Allisen Corpuz/Collin Morikawa (U.S.A.) defeat Amy Yang/Tom Kim (INT) 2&1. This one will forever be remembered for its unexpected Nicklaus-Jacklinesque display of sportsmanship during a Tom Kim match. “Being with the women this week, I realized I don’t want to be the next JT of the golf world,” Kim said after the tough loss. “Sure, I really wanted to act like a total jagwagon a few times like my hero JT would have. Like, you know, run around a green after I hole a flop shot, or whine about not being given a legit two-and-a-half-footer. But being around Allisen and Amy just made me realize I don’t need to try to go viral every time I make a putt. They’re such classy women, and so is Collin. It was an honor to be with them out there today. ”
Nelly Korda/Patrick Cantlay (U.S.A.) defeat Brooke Henderson/Corey Conners (INT) 5&4. “Tough day for Canada,” Captain Weir said. “But I can’t wait to wheel ‘em back out there in singles if Captain Webb will let me.” Korda and Cantlay put on arguably the best exhibition of the matches, making 10 birdies in 14 holes.
Hannah Green/Adam Scott (INT) defeat Alison Lee/Max Homa (U.S.A.) 3 up. Another win for the Australian duo, who have found something in these matches and figure to go on to big things in 2025. “Alison and I made seven birdies on a pretty tough course and they smoked us,” Homa said. “Crazy but what a great day.”
Rose Zhang/Scottie Scheffler (U.S.A.) defeat Lydia Ko/Jason Day (INT) 2&1. Scheffler struggled with his iron play throughout yet still made four birdies at key moments to assist Zhang against a Ko/Day duo that was -7 best-ball. Zhang’s 2024 match play record just keeps getting better: 46 holes won and only 10 lost between her short Solheim and Presidents Cup efforts. She’s 7-0-0 in 2024 Cup events. Late day crowds grew hostile to the unbeatable Scheffler, even hurling insults at his wife and turning caddie Ted Scott into an enforcer. So much for Canada nice.
Also…
Tiger Woods made a surprise appearance with daughter Sam and son Charlie who were so inspired by the mixed format that they convinced dad to put down the latest Dean Koontz, fire up the PJ, and fly to Montreal. Woods was expected to give the USA team a pre-singles session pep talk Saturday night or Sunday morning.
The NBC crew held things together very well given how many hours the network aired golf on Saturday. But here were odd moments.
They went to commercial thrice while chatty on-course reporter Smylie Kaufmann was mid-sentence. Perhaps because a closed-caption transcript of the broadcast reveals, Kaufmann uttered more words than all of NBC’s analysts combined.
Announcers twice confused USA and International men after both sides were wearing grey quarter zips during the morning Foursomes play.
Several viewers were hospitalized after suffering the bends when NBC jarringly cut to-and-from live drone tracer views. NBC will open the broadcast Sunday with a viewer discretion warning.
Sunday Singles
The expected drama surrounding Sunday’s snake draft singles played out to perfection. The pre-match Captain’s agreement stipulated just three rules:
The trailing team would draft first.
Each side had 2 minutes to announce a choice.
Corresponding draft selections must pick a player of the same gender.
International captains Mike Weir and Karie Webb stunned the chauvinists of the world by sending out Lydia Ko first.
Furyk and Lewis countered with Nelly Korda, then selected Xander Schauffele to headline match two.
The Internationals quickly countered with Hideki Matsuyama, then spent all of their allotted time mulling the third pick. Vice Captains were brought in, chins were stroked, heads shook, throats were (mock) slashed, before Webb took the microphone from Weir to announce fellow Aussie Hannah Green. The U.S.A. braintrust began consulting multiple spiral scenario notebooks in response. Just before the buzzer went off Vice Captain Cink blurted out “Morikawa.”
Reminded they had to select a woman, Lewis took the microphone and announced Rose Zhang, followed by Collin Morikawa for match four. The Internationals took little time countering with Sungjae Im followed by Brooke Henderson for match five.
The final draft results:
Lydia Ko vs. Nelly Korda
Hideki Matsuyama vs. Xander Schauffele
Hannah Green vs. Rose Zhang
Sungjae Im vs. Collin Morikawa
Brooke Henderson vs. Megan Khang
Ruoning Yin vs. Lilia Vu
Jin Young Ko vs. Lauren Coughlin
Min Woo Lee vs. Sahith Theegala
Ayaka Furue vs. Allisen Corpuz
Adam Scott vs. Patrick Cantlay
Tom Kim vs. Scottie Scheffler
Jason Day vs. Max Homa
The captains on the draft and their thinking:
All four co-leaders insisted they did not try to create an even split of genders. “It just worked out that way,” said Webb.
Furyk and Lewis seemed especially pleased with their lineup while there was a noticeable tension between Weir and Webb.
Weir struggled to speak after leaving fellow Canadian Conners off his roster. He insisted that co-Captain Webb never threatened to kill him if he favored Canadians over the Aussies in far better form. Several reporters reported seeing Vice Captain Geoff Ogilvy shake his head at the mention of either Canadian, while another VC and legend of the game, Se Ri Pak, mockingly choked when Weir looked at her when floating his compatriots for Sunday’s lineup.
Players sitting in the Singles session: Amy Yang, Minjee Lee, Byeong Hun An, Corey Conners (International); Alison Lee, Ally Ewing, Wyndham Clark, Keegan Bradley (USA).
Furyk said he passed over Bradley because next year’s Ryder Cup captain suffered a “left gluteal contusion” when an unnamed member of USA’s 75-member support crew slapped him too hard. The injury apparently happened when Bradley reached the par 5 12th green in two and after an exuberant team supporter slapped him too hard on the rear end.
Furyk said he’s assigned his wife to give an etiquette speech to the WAG’s and support team walking the fairways. Twice on Saturday the International team had to back off of putts as American WAG’s stood in green approaches and talked too loud for Netflix crews documenting their profound insights.
Enjoy Sunday singles!
It has taken me a long time to see that Tron of NLU has been right all along about Tom Kim, but that whining about not being given a putt of a distance from which the World #1 missed twice today, tipped me over the edge. Now, I can only think of other antics of his the last couple of years that speak to him as being a spoilt, immature and “thirsty” general annoyance.
It is a consolation, however, to realize that the golfing gods have already been on his case - that 6-6-6 finish in Memphis to miss being qualified for next year’s signature events by one stroke cannot be interpreted as anything but karma.
No worries! In every generation, in every sport - there's a Tom Kim. They are there to answer the prayers of journalists:)
Politics, on the other hand - supplies an endless stream of these self absorbed men & women