Thursday night, with the Presidents Cup seemingly already wrapped up in a one-day drubbing, it was fair to question the future of this lopsided event.
Five matches later, this weekend not only has new life, but the International Team had a watershed day it has sought for more than 25 years. Mike Weir’s team pulled off the seemingly impossible Friday, sweeping the Americans to bring the matches to a 5-5 tie entering the weekend.
Here are the top numbers and notes to know from an unforgettable Friday at Royal Montreal.
1. It’s almost impossible to overstate the weight of precedent that was against the International Team entering Friday. The team isn’t just winless in this competition since the turn of the century, it had trailed in the matches following 38 of the previous 42 sessions. It was boat-raced 5-0 Thursday in the format it traditionally hung around in, four-ball.
The Internationals had not won a single foursomes session since 2005, a goose egg in 17 consecutive opportunities spanning most of Tom Kim’s time on Earth. The point differential for the Americans in this alternate-shot format since 2007 was an obscene plus-33, a stat line more comfortable in a college football nonconference tuneup game than international team golf.
Weir’s team’s response Friday was to author one of the most impressive foursomes performances in the history of professional team golf.
2. The 5-0 sweep was just the second in a session in Presidents Cup history by the International team. In 2003, it routed the Americans 6-0 in Saturday afternoon four-ball to take a three-point lead into singles (the two sides would tie those matches). The five-point deficit the Internationals erased Friday was the largest in a single session in the history of the Presidents Cup.
It wasn’t just a five-point sweep, it was absolute domination. The International side played 57 holes with the lead Friday across all matches. The Americans? One. From the inception of the Presidents Cup in 1994 through 2022, the Internationals won four foursomes matches by a margin of 5 and 4 or greater. They did it three times Friday.
Giving the home crowd something to cheer about!@CoreConn and @MacHughesGolf are 6UP thru 11 @PresidentsCup. pic.twitter.com/GBUy7PcI63
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) September 27, 2024
3. The stomping a lively crowd saw in the opening match made them only rowdier, and set a tone for the day. Hideki Matsuyama and Sungjae Im smoked Xander Schauffele and Sungjae Im, 7 and 6, tying the largest margin of victory in any match in Presidents Cup history. The dominance was especially pronounced on the even-numbered holes, when Matsuyama and Cantlay hit tee shots. Cantlay missed the fairway at Nos. 2, 4, 6 and 8, leading to lost holes in each instance.
Overall, driving accuracy proved to be significant Friday. There were 25 holes won or lost on par 4s and 5s on the day. On 17 of those holes, the winning side hit the fairway with their tee shot. The International Team had 15 of those wins, the Americans just two.
4. Royal Montreal has clear steering when it comes to alternate shot strategy: players teeing off on odd holes have as many as eight more approach shots, while the even-number player hits more drives and has more birdie putt opportunities.
Over the last five PGA Tour seasons, no player has averaged more strokes gained approach per round than Collin Morikawa (+0.84 per round). And while he’s improved this season, Morikawa has never finished any of those years ranked in the top 50 on Tour in strokes gained putting. To have Morikawa hit fewer approach shots and more putts by having him tee off on the even holes was perplexing, to say the least.
5. Morikawa and partner Sahith Theegala were down after four holes to Adam Scott and Taylor Pendrith and never got back above water. Morikawa did not make a putt of 5 feet or longer in the match, while the Scott/Pendrith duo combined to win five different holes by making putts of at least 8 feet. Per Data Golf, the International side carried a four-shot advantage in strokes gained putting in the match.
The win was the ninth in the Presidents Cup foursomes career of Adam Scott, breaking a tie with Ernie Els for most in International team history. It also got Pendrith his first overall victory, having lost each of the first five in his career.
GO DEEPER
Adam Scott is speaking. After Day 2 of the Presidents Cup, everybody is listening
6. Canadian duo Corey Conners and Mackenzie Hughes won each of the first two holes in their match against Wyndham Clark and Tony Finau. It never got any closer after that, as they steamrolled to a resounding 6 and 5 victory. Conners was clinical with his irons, gaining more than 2.7 strokes in his match with his approach play alone, most of any player on Friday.
Conners and Hughes had a plus-5 hole win differential on par 4s, reflecting an overall trend of the day. In Thursday’s four-ball, the Americans held a plus-2 differential on par 4s. That number was plus-15 in favor of the International Team on Day 2. Like his countryman Pendrith, the win was also Conners’ first match victory.
The American team of Max Homa, left, and Brian Harman could not find a way to even half their match. (Harry How / Getty Images)
7. While the other two matches were significantly tighter, they still swung Weir’s way: 1-up victories for the duos of Christiaan Bezuidenhout/Jason Day and Sungjae Im/Si Woo Kim. Day and Bezuidenhout’s win was despite being outplayed with their approach shots by a significant margin, per Data Golf’s numbers. On and around the greens, however, they were a combined plus-2.77 strokes the better.
Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley played the third hole Friday with a 1-up lead in their match. It would be the only hole the entire U.S. team played Friday enjoying that distinction. Si Woo Kim, who has the worst strokes gained putting ranking this season of any player on the International side (138th), buried a 15-foot par putt on the last hole to secure the full point and the session sweep.
8. The United States has a foursomes problem. In Rome, the Europeans smacked the U.S. team in that format, winning seven of eight matches. Add in Friday’s debacle and they are now 1-12 in their last 13 alternate shot matches in U.S. team competition.
By strokes gained this season, the three weakest approach players on the U.S. side are Max Homa (74th), Wyndham Clark (90th) and Patrick Cantlay (97th). All three men played Friday in foursomes, where a player can’t be bailed out after a bad shot by a teammate hitting a better one. The International side played to a combined score of 25-under-par Friday. The Americans were just 7-under.
9. On Day 1, the United States had a plus-6 hole win differential in four-ball. That flipped to plus-6 in favor of the International side on Friday. Putting is where the International side separated themselves in foursomes, accumulating more than eight strokes gained on the greens in the session.
After Friday’s stunning reversal, the Presidents Cup is tied after two sessions for just the second time in the history of the event. In 2003, the two teams were nodded up at 5 1/2 apiece before going on to draw, 17-all.
10. With each session resulting in a 5-0 score, this marks the first time in Presidents, Ryder or Solheim Cup history that there have been back-to-back session sweeps.
Twenty-four hours after the Presidents Cup looked like another snooze-fest, an International lightning bolt has reinvigorated the competition.
(Top photo of Hideki Matsuyama, left, and Sungjae Im: Jared C. Tilton / Getty Images)
