Tom Kim lost his four-ball match on Thursday and sat out Friday’s foursomes session — the Internationals swept Team USA to tie the Presidents Cup up at 5-5 heading into the weekend — but came out with some serious energy in his Saturday morning four-ball match.
Kim, paired with Si Woo Kim, made his fifth birdie of the morning session on No. 14 with a long effort to stay 3 up on Keegan Bradley and Wyndham Clark.
The International Team spark plug started walking backward as the putt got closer to the hole and exploded with emotion when it dropped.
Team Kim shared a chest bump and a hole later closed out the match, 4 and 3.
On Thursday night, it looked like things could get late early for the International Team at the 2024 Presidents Cup after the United States swept the opening four-ball session and held a 5-0 lead heading into Friday’s foursomes matches.
But the Internationals were out for blood on Day 2 at Royal Montreal Golf Club.
Hideki Matsuyama and Sungjae Im got the party started early, defeating Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay, 7 and 6. Schauffele and Cantlay have now lost three straight foursomes matches in team events.
After being swept in Thursday’s four-ball session, it would have been easy for the International Team to lose hope heading into Friday’s foursomes session of the 2024 Presidents Cup.
But that’s not what happened on Day 2 at Royal Montreal Golf Club.
The Internationals stormed back with massive victories in three matches, including a 7-and-6 win for Hideki Matsuyama and Sungjae Im over Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay, and won all five matches overall to tie the biennial event through two days.
As you’d expect, there were plenty of big celebrations from the Internationals throughout Friday afternoon. Check out 12 of the best photos below.
It will go down as the greatest turnaround in Presidents Cup history.
MONTREAL – What a difference a day makes.
After the U.S. side swept the first five matches Thursday at Royal Montreal, International Team Captain Mike Weir, Canadian through and through, described the shutout in hockey terms as only the first period.
“There’s a long way to go,” Weir pointed out. “Still significant sessions left. That’s the way we’re looking at it.”
On Friday, his team delivered the equivalent of a hat trick, bouncing back with a clean sweep of its own in foursomes. After two sessions, the match is tied at 5-5. It marked the first time in Presidents Cup history with multiple session sweeps and just the second time the International Team has swept a session (2003). Sungjae Im, who teamed with Hideki Matsuyama, to earn the International Team’s first point summed up the valiant comeback as only he can.
“Our vibe was vibing,” Im said through a translator.
Weir couldn’t ignore that his team had a nightmare start but he stuck to his plan and it worked. Im and Matsuyama boat-raced the pairing of Patrick Cantlay-Xander Schauffele in the first foursomes (alternate shot) match, 7 and 6, tying the largest margin of victory in a foursomes match.
A day after Im was cold with the putter and managed just one birdie, Im and Matsuyama were 8-under through 12 holes and ran the tables with seven straight birdies beginning at No. 6.
“We knew that we could come back from this,” Matsuyama said. “Sungjae hit a perfect shot on the 1st hole, so I think that really brought the momentum.”
The second match proved to be another beat down with Adam Scott and Canadian Taylor Pendrith routing the American side of Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala, 5 and 4. The International Team reeled off three straight holes in a row starting at the fourth and never looked back.
“We just needed to find a little something extra,” Scott said.
It was the first point earned by Pendrith, who was winless in his first five career Presidents Cup matches, and the 22nd for Scott, who became the all-time leader for most points won in the team competition.
Captain Weir finally teamed up a pair of his Canadians, and Corey Conners and Mackenzie Hughes delivered another resounding victory, trouncing Wyndham Clark and Tony Finau, 6 and 5.
Hughes, who was on the bench Thursday and whose only contribution was chugging a Stella Artois beer on the first tee on to get the crowd going, played as if he had guzzled a six-pack of Jolt. He egged on the crowd to get louder and the revved-up fans responded with cheers of “I-N-T” and “Dig in,” and even cheered the Americans bad shots, usually a given in these sort of international matches.
“That was a blast today,” Conners said. “Right from the 1st tee, the crowd was in it. They were behind us. We felt their energy, fed off their energy.”
“Why did Mike Weir take so long to get Team Canada out on the golf course?” PGA Tour Radio’s John Rollins wondered.
Great question. With their wives waving gold pom-poms with Canadian flags sticking out from the top, the Canadians won three of the first five holes and coasted to an easy victory. This match was a microcosm of the day as the Americans burned lips and missed the big putts they had made a day earlier. Hughes and Conners, who were college teammates at Kent State and partnered hundreds of times in Tuesday practice-round money games on Tour, had a comfort level playing together that Clark and Finau couldn’t match.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout, who had missed countless putts on Thursday, poured them in on Friday and sparked a 1-up win with Australian Jason Day over Max Homa and Brian Harman. Day hit a gorgeous flop shot tight at 18 for a conceded par to hang on for the victory.
It was the closest match but it still may have been the biggest upset of the day as South Koreans Ben An and Si Woo Kim edged world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley. In this tight contest, only three holes weren’t halved. Kim drilled his tee shot to 3 feet at the par-3 13th to set up a winning birdie that proved to be the difference. Then he delivered a clutch par putt at 18 to secure a 1-up win, telling his partner to get him inside 15 feet and he’d take care of the rest.
“So I made it,” Kim said. “All the front four groups many points, so I need to game on.”
And just like that, the U.S. lead had evaporated in one session.
“I’d say there was a better chance it would have been 10-0 than it would have been 5-5,” PGA Tour Live analyst Craig Perks said.
But it will go down as the greatest turnaround in Presidents Cup history, and even more stunning considering the Internationals hadn’t won a Foursomes session since 2005.
“We left yesterday at the door when we walked out,” Hughes said. “We came here this morning, we had our heads held high, chin up, and we were ready to play.”
Seated alongside U.S. Presidents Cup teammates Xander Schauffele, Keegan Bradley and Scottie Scheffler in the interview room, Theegala, a rookie in international team competition who teamed with Collin Morikawa for a 1-up victory over Adam Scott and Min Woo Lee in the second of five Four-Ball matches on Thursday, talked as if he’d done this a million times.
“Match play is a funny, funny thing,” he said. “There’s always some Mongolians and things go the ways that you don’t think it would go. But yeah, it was really intense. To finish how we finished was awesome, to get a point.”
Mongolians? Laughter ensued along the raised platform where the players sat. You could tell that Schauffele and maybe even Scheffler couldn’t wait to get back to the team room and share the knowledge Theegala dropped on the media during their group session. It likely will follow him until at least the next Presidents Cup in 2026. But it almost slipped through the cracks of the remaining allotted time of questions and answers before the players would be whisked out of the room and a handful of International Team players would replace them. Thankfully, Shane Ryan of Golf Digest was granted the last question and he wondered, “Sahith, can you tell me what Mongolians are?”
“I heard them laughing when I said that,” Theegala began. “I realize I didn’t say the full phrase. Not race intended or country intended, but Mongolian Reversal, I don’t even know how it originated.”
Who really does? But Theegala noted that the first time he heard the saying a long time ago happened to be when he was watching TV and former three-time U.S. Presidents Cup Captain Fred Couples uttered the phrase. [I’m pretty sure I was in attendance at a press conference in which Couples used this term.] A quick Google search of the saying and Fred Couples returned a handful of returns, including the great Michael Bamberger writing that he was going to keep using the term Mongolian Reversal “because Fred Couples uses it, too.” The equally great Gary Van Sickle credited Couples too for the term in a 2006 story.
Then Theegala explained to Ryan what it meant.
“I guess it’s just when your opponents are in a better place than you on the hole and you do something cool like make a long putt. It looks like your opponents were going to win the hole when you hit the approach shots in, but you make the long putt and they miss the short putt, and all of a sudden looking like you’re losing the hole to winning the hole,” he said.
In a gesture not often heard at an athlete’s press conference, Theegala added, “Thank you for asking to clarify that.”
Blessed with enough self-awareness to realize that this terminology he picked up from Couples may have gone the way of such politically incorrect terms such as Indian burn and Chinese fire drill, Theegala closed by saying, “Mongolian Reversal, yes. Don’t cancel me, please.”
Theegala is salt of the Earth and also spent time praising both his parents for the reason he was sitting on the stage in the first place. After not getting the chance to ask a follow-up question, I approached Theegala as he was exiting the press conference and wondered, what was the Mongolian Reversal in his Four-ball match?
He wasted no time responding. “The seventh hole,” he said. “Collin drained a putt and then Adam missed from 10 feet. It didn’t look we’d win that hole and we could’ve gone 2 down in the match but instead we were back to all square.”
Kisner and Villegas added a new twist on the job of assistant captain.
MONTREAL — It’s not often that assistant captains in team competitions do much more than drive a cart, fetch sandwiches and hold their trusty walkie-talkies. But on Thursday at the 2024 Presidents Cup, U.S. Assistant Captain Kevin Kisner and International Team Assistant Captain Camilo Villegas added a new twist on the job, engaging in a war of words.
“They took gamesmanship too far and over the line on sportsmanship and lose some integrity,” Kisner told Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis. “I thought it was pretty bush league and I told Camilo that if that’s the way they want to do it, then game on. If you can piss off my No. 1 player in the world, then I’m all for it.”
Kisner’s comments relate back to the eighth hole, where Tom Kim sank a birdie putt and tried to stir up the crowd with fist pumps and shouting, “Come on!” What riled up Kisner was seeing Kim and partner Sungjae Im exit the green and head to the ninth tee to talk to Villegas before Scheffler had attempted his putt to tie the hole. It’s an unwritten rule among golfers to wait, or simply the courteous thing to do, and Kisner didn’t like it one bit.
Golf Channel’s John Wood was walking with the group and he expressed surprise too: “Kim and Im have left. They have gone to the ninth tee box and have absolutely left. They are 60 yards away and are not watching. Things are definitely getting a little chippy right now.”
Golf Channel’s Paul McGinley later chimed in: “That’s bordering on bad behavior. That’s disrespectful in my opinion.
“I’m a great believer in that you don’t want to give the opponent energy, you don’t want to put a chip on their shoulder and give them the moral high ground. Their behavior was not the moral high ground. They didn’t pay the respect of watching their opponent’s putt. That’s not a good psychological position for the Internationals.”
But when Scheffler was asked if it bothered him, he claimed that he didn’t see it. His partner, Russell Henley, however did. “It bothered me a little bit.”
But not as much as Kisner, who confronted Villegas. “When Kim and Im walked off the eight green, it looked like Villegas instigated it,” Wood explained. “He said let’s go and they walked over there. After that hole, the American vice captain with this group is Kevin Kisner and it looked like he and Camilo had some words. I couldn’t hear what was said but it didn’t look that friendly to be honest with you.”
Captain’s Assistant Camilo Villegas of Colombia and the International Team speaks to the media following a practice round prior to the 2024 Presidents Cup at The Royal Montreal Golf Club. (Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)
Later, Kisner texted to Golf Channel’s Brad Faxon exactly what he had said: “If you’re going to do that, then it’s game on.”
The kerfuffle continued at the 16th hole after the U.S. side claimed a 3-and-2 win. According to Lewis, Villegas said he told Kisner, “Why are you being so sensitive?”
“Because I play by the rules,” Kisner responded, according to Villegas.
Villegas shot back: “Nothing against the rules of leaving the green.”
While that it may be the case, it is behavior that is usually frowned upon. When Kim was asked at a post-match press conference why they left the green, he said, “We just were focusing on our game. I made a putt, and whether he made it or not wasn’t going to make a difference. There was no reason to stay there and look at him putt. It doesn’t help us at all. It wasn’t trying to be cheap or do anything like that. We were focused on our own game.”
One thing is clear and it was summed up perfectly by Xander Schauffele, who was referring to Scheffler, the world No. 1, but may as well have been talking about Kisner: “From my perspective, it looked like he poked the bear.”
“I’m definitely expecting more crowds to be louder and for them to be on our side.”
The International team wants more from the home crowd.
It was a drubbing Thursday at the 2024 Presidents Cup, with the United States winning all five matches and taking a 5-0 lead heading into Friday’s foursomes at Royal Montreal Golf Club in Canada. The Internationals were close in a handful of matches late, but the United States made putts and clutch shots down the stretch as the International team faltered.
At the end of the day, there wasn’t much to cheer on for the Canadian fans in Montreal, but a couple players were wanting more from the fans after the opening day of play.
“We need to get louder, I think, the next few days here and really feel the home support,” said Canadian Taylor Pendrith.
Added Tom Kim, who broke out as a star at the Presidents Cup in 2022: “Definitely when the crowds are with us, it definitely helps when you can kind of get loud. Like Taylor said, I think it was a little too quiet today being on home soil. I don’t think the fans were really — I wish they would have helped us out a bit more, especially being in Canada. I know how much they love golf.
“I’m definitely expecting more crowds to be louder and for them to be on our side.”
A better showing from the International team will held the crowd get back into it as the Presidents Cup moves into the weekend, but there’s no doubt a raucous home crowd is needed for the Internationals to have any chance of a comeback.
“I thought the crowds were good today,” International captain Mike Weir said. “I think you get a little momentum going on your side, that’s when the crowds can get going. I think everybody is excited, nervous, and I think the crowds are going to be louder and louder as we go along here.”
“The first day is really important and kind of sets the tone for the entire week.”
MONTREAL – Tom Kim and Scottie Scheffler are such good friends that during the CJ Cup Byron Nelson in Dallas, Scheffler’s parents came out to follow Kim play even though their son was at home expecting the birth of their first child. But at the Presidents Cup, the biennial competition between 12-man teams from the U.S. and an International Team composed of the rest of the world (excluding Europe), their friendship is put on hold.
“For one week I absolutely dislike him,” Kim said on Tuesday during his media session ahead of the competition.
But Kim didn’t shy away from competing against Scheffler, the world No. 1, who beat him in a sudden-death playoff at the Travelers Championship in June. He and Sungjae Im, an all-Korean pairing, had all they could handle in Scheffler and his partner, Presidents Cup rookie Russell Henley, who notched a 3-and-2 victory at Royal Montreal Golf Club in the match that had the most theatrics and even got a little chippy.
That wasn’t the only win for the U.S., who grabbed a 5-0 lead, marking just the third time the opening session of the Presidents Cup has been swept, both times by the U.S. in 1994 and 2000.
Two years ago, the U.S. took a commanding 4-1 lead during the opening session and never looked back. International Team Captain Mike Weir made the logical choice to make four-ball the first session given that the side had won that format in every Presidents Cup held outside the U.S., but not this time. Weir’s team face an even steeper deficit to overcome.
Kim, who had his coming out party two years ago at the Presidents Cup with his youthful exuberance, hadn’t had any reason to pump his fists as the U.S. took a 2-up lead thru six holes. During a practice round, Kim celebrated a putt by running around a green with his arms spread wide like an airplane.
“There was a lot of trash talking going on. Once I made it, I had to react at it,” he explained.
Asked if he would celebrate in similar fashion this week, he said, “Absolutely. You’ll see it,” and added, “I feel like it’s that one aspect when you can actually run around the green and not get crap for it.”
To no surprise, Kim tried to get the home crowd pumped up when he poured in a 28-foot birdie putt at the par-3 seventh. He clenched his fists and yelled, “C’mon! Let’s Goooo!’
Scheffler answered with a clutch 24-foot putt of his own and stared down his opponents, roaring back with his own words of trash talk: “What was that?!”
One hole later, Kim sank a 24-foot putt and fist-pumped again, shouting, “C’mon!” as he stepped behind Scheffler, who had his back to Kim and backhanded him his ball from the cup.
After Henley missed, it was up to Scheffler to hole from 12 feet. Kim and Im didn’t wait for Scheffler to putt, which is standard practice. Instead, they walked off to the ninth tee to chat with International assistant captain Camilo Villegas. Scheffler failed to convert and the U.S. lead was trimmed to 1 up. Asked afterward if it bothered him that his opponents walked off before he putted, something that is typically frowned upon, Scheffler said he didn’t see it. “It bothered me a little bit,” Henley said.
Villegas, Kisner ‘had some words’
He wasn’t alone. Golf Channel reporter John Wood said that Villegas and American assistant captain Kevin Kisner “had some words” after Kim and Im departed the green early.
“I’m not sure what was said, but it didn’t look all that friendly to be honest with you,” Wood noted.
Kisner later texted NBC’s Brad Faxon what he had said to Villegas: “If you’re going to do that, then it’s game on.”
Indeed, it was. Scheffler drained a 25-foot birdie putt at No. 10 and Kim answered by sinking a 21-footer to tie the hole. This time, there were merely fist pumps and an exhale from Scheffler.
Henley stepped up and contributed back-to-back birdies at Nos. 14 and 15 to win the holes and stretch the lead to 3 up.
“Making the team is one thing but earning a point for your team is another,” Henley said. “I just really wanted to get a point today.”
Falling 3-down was too big a deficit for Kim and Im to overcome and one hole later they were taking off hats and shaking hands. Asked about the back-and-forth show of emotion during their match, Scheffler said, “That was a bit of fun. It’s the same thing I would have done at home if he had made a putt and we were playing Wolf and he celebrated like that. So it’s all in good fun. We enjoy competing against each other.
“That’s what it’s like out here. It’s fun to compete and fun to represent our country, and at the end of the match you take your hat off and shake hands. We’re friends after, we’re not friends during, I guess.”
U.S. team’s players wives and girlfriends cheer during Thursday’s Four-ball matches on day one of the 2024 Presidents Cup at The Royal Montreal Golf Club. (Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images)
Xander Schauffele stuffed his approach at 18 to 3 feet to secure the first point for the Americans. He and partner Tony Finau downed Ben An and Jason Day, 1 up.
“We knew what we were supposed to do,” Schauffele said. “Tony got the party started on that front nine and keeping it close and then getting that lead. He had my back all day. I figured it’s my turn to have his back.”
Rookie Sahith Theegala, who played with Collin Morikawa, struck the knockout punch, stiffing his approach at 18 to clinch a 1-up win for the U.S. over Min Woo Lee and Adam Scott.
Keegan Bradley, who made six putts of more than 10 feet, and Wyndham Clark never trailed in their match against Christiaan Bezuidenhout and claimed a 1-up win.
In the final match of the day, Sam Burns and Patrick Cantlay defeated Corey Conners and Hideki Matsuyama 2 and 1.
The U.S. is seeking its 10th straight victory in the match-play competition and 13th overall in 15 editions of the Presidents Cup. American Brian Harman, who didn’t play on Thursday, summed up the importance of the U.S. getting off to a fast start.
“The first day is really important and kind of sets the tone for the entire week,” Harman said. “I know when we got way down in the Ryder Cup, it felt like a really tall hill to climb.”
The Internationals mounted a big comeback on Friday.
The U.S. led 5-0 after Thursday’s opening four-ball session, but Friday was a completely different story.
From the jump, there was a lot of yellow on the board, and that carried into the back nine of all five matches. Hideki Matsuyama and Sungjae Im were on a mission on Day 2, defeating the American team of Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay, 7 and 6.
They weren’t the only International team taking care of business, as Corey Conners and Mackenzie Hughes, two Canadians, defeated Wyndham Clark and Tony Finau, 6 and 5
Let’s take a look at Friday’s foursomes scores at the Presidents Cup north of the border at Royal Montreal Golf Club.
“It’s really been an inspiring week for me, on and off the golf course.”
It was always Keegan Bradley.
Playing in the fourth match with Wyndham Clark on Thursday during the four-ball session at the 2024 Presidents Cup, Bradley made his return to team competition for the first time since 2013. This time, he earned his way onto the Presidents Cup team thanks to his victory at the BMW Championship last month in Colorado.
And the fiery Bradley returned with a fire that is needed at these competitions, and it’s a big reason why he was selected to be the Ryder Cup captain next year at Bethpage Black.
Bradley poured in a birdie putt on the closing par-4 18th to clinch he and Clark’s match 1 up against Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Taylor Pendrith. He and Clark weren’t perfect on Thursday at Royal Montreal Golf Club, but as the Internationals missed putts and struggled down the stretch, Bradley put the nail in the coffin on a dominating start by the Americans, a powerful fist pump letting out the frustrations and disappointment of the past decade.
“It was 10 years of pent up energy, it looks like, of not playing these,” Bradley said. “I just had such a blast out there today. It’s really fun for me to be out here with these guys. I told Wyndham on 17 or 18 just how much I missed being out here and doing this.”
Bradley and Clark were 9 under on their best ball Thursday, the best of any American team. On his own ball, Bradley had five birdies, including on the opening hole
The fieriness of Bradley is needed at events like the Presidents Cup, and he returned with flair on Thursday.
When he poured in the closing birdie to clinch the 1-up victory, he let out a massive fist pump, which was one of many during the match. He and Clark had plenty of reasons to celebrate down the stretch.
“This morning when I heard the national Anthem and I was seeing the boys getting ready, I was really emotional. It really took me by surprise,” Bradley said. “There’s been a few times this week where I’ve been emotional about this week. I’ve said I didn’t — there was a point in my life I never thought I’d get to do this again.
“To be able to be out here with a totally new group of guys and guys that really, I’m not afraid to say, I’m 38 years old, and I look up to all these players here. It’s really been an inspiring week for me, on and off the golf course. I just love being around them. They’re funny, they’re fun, and I just am really proud to be in the same room with them playing this tournament.”
Keegan Bradley celebrates with Wyndham Clark after a putt on the 18th green during Thursday’s four-ball matches at the 2024 Presidents Cup at the Royal Montreal Golf Club. (Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)
Last year, Netflix cameras captured the heartbreak as Zach Johnson called Bradley to tell him he would not be on the U.S. Ryder Cup team. Bradley still hasn’t unpacked his bag from his lone appearance in that team competition. Then this spring, he was announced as the U.S. captain for the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black.
Before winning the BMW, he was set to be an assistant captain for Jim Furyk at Royal Montreal. Then he won, and this week became about his on-course performance.
That’s exactly what the United States needed.
“I always feel like I’m always trying to suppress my emotions on the golf course, and what I love about this tournament is you’re able to let them out,” Bradley said.
