The Internationals rallied from a 5-point deficit to tie the Presidents Cup on Friday.
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Maybe you thought that Presidents Cup it was over. You’d be forgiven for thinking so, given the overwhelmingly favored Team USA that jumped into a 5-0 lead after Day 1. What if the international side started taking shots? What if the international side did ANY easy throw?
That’s kind of what happened Friday at Royal Montreal.
It started with Hideki Matsuyama and Sungjae Im, who made seven consecutive birdies in the alternate putting session, sprinting to a 7 and 6 victory over Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele. Matsuyama was the best shooter of the entire session and it wasn’t particularly tight.
The other game featured Adam Scott and Taylor Pendrith, two players who have struggled with shooting at points in their careers. Not on Friday, where Scott was the third-best putter of the session, thanks in part to a 40-footer he made for birdie on the 5th hole to take a 2-up lead. They would close Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala 5 and 4.
Mackenzie Hughes was picked as captain by fellow Canadian Mike Weir for exactly that reason: his deployment. But he was not sent to Thursday’s opening hearing. Instead, Weir held Hughes – and his 5th-best shot on Tour this season – to Friday’s foursome. The idea of pairing Hughes with a fellow Canadian in Corey Conners — one of his best friends and former college teammate — who struggles a bit with his flat bat made a lot of sense. Only Conners was keeping everything, finishing the session as the fourth best shooter. The former Kent State teammates beat Wyndham Clark and Tony Finau 6 and 4 when Hughes hit a 5-footer for the win.
It looked like a day full of international magic might end with a halved match between Si Woo Kim and Ben An against Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley. But Kim had played as quietly as any golfer all day, going head-to-head against the best player in the world in Scheffler. He stayed on a 15-footer for the par on the 18th hole, played his shot well left and dropped his putter’s glove into the ground as the ball rolled into the center of the cup for a 1-up victory.
It’s amazing what a hot player can do in match play, especially in the alternate shot game, when a pair of golfers manage to pull their games together as one. The Internationals seemed to accomplish that overnight, reversing their 5-point deficit to gain 16 strokes over the Americans on the greens alone on Friday.
At the end of a decisive Cup comeback session – which they won 5-0 – the internationals had fielded 10 players and finished with eight top scorers. The Americans finished the session with eight of the nine worst players. Ironically, the best bowler entering the week for the Internationals, Hughes, finished Friday as the second-worst bowler from that team. That’s how you turn the tide. Almost every player on your team outperforms the best player on your team.
The game is officially in Montreal.
