Even though the competition wasn’t the best at times, the atmosphere was electric as usual as the United States picked up a 17.5 to 12.5 victory over the International team.
This is the ninth straight win for the U.S., and their record is 12-1-1 overall in this biennial event.
International Team Made It Close
You have to give the International team credit; they fought until the end even though they were heavily outmanned this weekend. Golfers who have gone to LIV were ineligible to play in the President’s Cup, so the International team missed out on having the likes of having world #3 Cameron Smith, #21 Joaquin Niemann, #24 Abraham Ancer, or veterans Louis Oosthuizen and Marc Leishman on their team.
As a result of the LIV ban, eight of the 12 players on the International team were playing in their President’s Cup debut. The nerves showed early as the American team had an 8-2 lead after two days with a legitimate opportunity to end the event on Saturday and possibly reaching 20 points for the first time since the format went to 30 matches.
The International team made an event of it, though, starting on Saturday afternoon and heading into a hot start on Sunday. Si Woo Kim beat Justin Thomas in the Sunday’s single matches, Sebastian Munoz upset world #1, Scottie Scheffler, while Sungjae Im, K.H. Lee, and Christiaan Bezuidenhout also picked up victories for the International Team.
Tom Kim was the talk of Twitter this weekend for his breakout performance for the International team on Saturday. Kim and Lee took down Scheffler and Sam Burns in the morning foursome matches, and in the afternoon, Kim and Si Woo Kim took down Zurich Classic of New Orleans winners Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, the #4 and #5 golfers in the world.
Kim lost his match to Max Homa on Sunday and went just 2-3 on the weekend, but the 20-year-old brought an energy to this event that inspired the International team.
Americans Get the Job Done
They were -800 favorites, had never lost the Presidents Cup on American soil, and had five of the top 10 golfers in the world on their team, so an American win isn’t a shocker, but it was still cause for celebration for the 12 U.S. team members.
Schauffele hit the winning putt on the 18th on Sunday in his match against Corey Conners, and the party was on. Jordan Spieth was the MVP for the U.S. team with a 5-0-0 record on the weekend. Spieth cashed in at +1600 as the leading individual point scorer.
Homa was also a bright spot with a 4-0 record that included taming the beast that was Tom Kim in the individual match on Sunday. The fact that the U.S. cruised to victory despite Scheffler being 0-3-1 on the weekend is telling of just how young, deep, and talented this American squad was.
The fact that 29-year-olds Thomas and Spieth feel like elder statesmen on this U.S. team shows just how far the International team has to come by 2024 at the Royal Montreal Golf Club.
