by After a stirring Friday comeback that saw the Internationals post a 5-0 sweep of their own to send the Presidents Cup tied into the weekend, the American depth won out in the end, as the United States retained the cup with a final score of 18.5 to 11.5. That’s a fairly common narrative for this event, and Sunday was sleepy, but Saturday was fun while it lasted. The Americans won both Saturday sessions 3-1, taking six of a possible eight points and opening up a four-point cushion for Sunday. That proved to be plenty, as the Internationals managed just three singles wins (including Hideki taking down Scottie Scheffler) en route to defeat, with Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley poetically providing the clinching point.
The Americans rode Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, and Collin Morikawa, as all three players posted four points while playing five sessions. Sam Burns and Scottie Scheffler were also standouts for the week, and only Brian Harman failed to post a point of any kind. No one was blanked on the International side, but no player posted more than two points, either, while Mike Weir was questioned for his decision to send the same eight players out for both Saturday sessions.
Read on for our takeaways from the week, with thoughts on Tom Kim, team match play, the broadcast, and more.
The Real Captain America
By Brendan Porath
Patrick Cantlay is a Golden God. He is the real Captain America. There’s been ample criticism tossed at Cantlay in recent years about his pace, his demeanor, his major results, his role in PGA Tour board business, his hat-wearing habit, and more. He has become a punching bag. He also seems like the person on the PGA Tour most likely to go unbothered by all of that.
Cantlay once again led an American side in points, joined by fellow studs Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa, who also went all five sessions and also each went 4-1. Cantlay has played five straight cups for the U.S. side. He has never had a losing record. He is 15-6-1 overall. He has become as reliable each fall as Nick Saban, similarly deadpan and process-oriented. The impressive records aside, perhaps the best context to drive home how great Cantlay has become in these team events is that he is the American player the other side fears most if a match hangs in the balance at a critical moment.
Patrick Cantlay has separated himself among American players in team competitions (Fried Egg Golf)
Following up last year’s work to close out Saturday in Italy, Cantlay did it again in the darkness in Montreal, burying a putt on the 18th to put the dancing Si Woo Kim and hollering Tom Kim to bed.
Those two earned many more social media impressions. Cantlay continues to earn the points and put actual anxiety if not outright fear into opponents, who are left cursing under their breath. The Kims were incredible, and far more entertaining than Cantlay. But there continues to be something so admirable about the way he watches, or ignores, whatever goes on around him, burns quietly, and wins. There are no Justin Thomas-style antics that might rub some people, (even on his own team) the wrong way, and there’s almost never failure in big team moments. So what more do you want? You might dislike him every other week of the year, but his demeanor, approach, and success are actually exactly how you’d want the winning player on your side to go about it. He, and the great partnership he has forged with Xander, are the face of this American victory.
His is the kind of productivity the U.S. side has missed for decades. This was just a Presidents Cup. The last great barrier for this generation will be a Ryder Cup win on foreign soil, where Cantlay has already shown he can deliver. This week reaffirmed he should be a pillar, if not the all-out leader, of these teams. Now and for years to come.
Hold the Line
By Brendan Porath
The Presidents Cup is fine. I tend to lean cynical or jaded, and I fully agree there are some hacky PGA Tour fingerprints on this competition, but how can you watch Friday and Saturday of this year’s P Cup and think, “Man this sucks!” Go watch the ProCore or RSM. Or don’t watch at all. Or shout about how it should be a mixed event, the most facile pipe-dream bit of criticism and well-worn ground for a decade now. There’s room for a mixed event and there should be a movement for one. Go organize it and see how it does. But there’s no need to abandon the Presidents Cup. The overall record is not competitive, which remains a problem, but it continues to be entertaining and often competitive day-to-day for the people who actually watch.
To listen to the critics, you’d think major winners and prideful top-50 players were low-level amateurs incapable of beating the United States. I think that discredits not only them, but also just how good this American team is and how well it showed up, especially at the top. The difference in holes won between the two sides was one. Tweak and adjust if you want, but to simply point to another blowout on the scoreboard and say that this event needs to be abandoned is unrealistic and jaded. It’s also a sign of someone who wasn’t watching for much of the weekend, which offered an enjoyable blend of drama, nonsense, controversy, and competition.
The Tom Kim Show
By Garrett Morrison
Let’s summarize Tom Kim’s week at Royal Montreal:
1. Celebrated boisterously in the faces of Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley multiple times during Thursday’s four-ball match.
2. Under instructions from assistant captain Camilo Villegas, walked to the ninth tee with partner Sungjae Im before opponent Scottie Scheffler had putted out on the eighth green.
3. Called out the Canadian galleries for being too quiet during the International team’s 0-5 start on Thursday.
4. After holing a three-footer on Saturday, laid down his putter to suggest the putt should have been given.
You giving this one to the @IntlTeam? pic.twitter.com/wmhZA5e9iD
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) September 28, 2024
5. Participated in a Steph Curry-inspired celebration with partner Si Woo Kim before losing Saturday afternoon’s foursomes match to Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele.
CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!
Si Woo Kim chips in from an impossible lie to win the hole! pic.twitter.com/8fxKNig54a
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) September 28, 2024
6. Accused unnamed U.S. players of cursing at him during Saturday’s action.
7. Halved his singles match with Sam Burns to post a 1-2-1 record on the week.
Starting on Thursday afternoon, and with increasing vehemence through Saturday and Sunday, public opinion turned against the 22-year-old from South Korea. Especially in the context of his two losses in pairs play, his behavior struck many fans—Americans in particular—as bush-league and bratty.
I loved all of it.
Tom Kim wasn't afraid to stir things up, always a welcome variable (Fried Egg Golf)
Now, context is important here. If a player on the favored or leading squad does this kind of chest-beating, “who do you think you are—I am!” routine, it can come off differently. It can feel like punching down.
But Tom Kim plays for a team with a 1-13-1 all-time record. A team that hasn’t won a Presidents Cup outright since 1998. A team that often seems to accept defeat with a calm sense of inevitability. A team that might need more brats.
Kim brought juice to Royal Montreal this past week. Even if his play didn’t always back up his attitude, I like that he believed in himself and visibly gave a crap about the outcome. If I’m an International-team fan, I’m taking his antics 10 times out of 10 over yet another low-energy disappearing act from Jason Day.
Forty years ago, a group of scrappy continental Europeans breathed life into an international match-play event that the U.S. had grown comfortable dominating. Maybe Tom Kim and his still-young South Korean compatriots Si Woo Kim and Sungjae Im will do something similar in the coming years.
Team Match Play Remains Unbeaten
By Meg Adkins
The Americans may have chalked up another Presidents Cup victory, but team match play was the real winner of the week. The format is undefeated when it comes to giving professional golf a shot of life, often providing more drama and intrigue than every week outside of the majors. Even when the deck is heavily stacked against one team (like it was this week with the Internationals), it entertains like nothing else in golf.
It prompted Scottie Scheffler to talk trash and Si Woo Kim to go (not quite) night night. It makes Tom Kim, well, see exhibits A-G above from Garrett. It gives fans the predictable thumping by Team USA on Thursday and then provides the unthinkable on Friday with the Internationals providing a beat down of their own.
Scottie Scheffler screaming WHAT WAS THAT at Tom Kim andddd I think the Presidents Cup has officially started pic.twitter.com/C1tEGo3Wkd
— Dylan Dethier (@dylan_dethier) September 26, 2024
It’s mind boggling that there isn’t more match play, individual or team, on the schedule. It caters to both casual and die hard fans, adds variety, and improves the product. For an entertainment product, why does the most entertaining version of the game hardly ever happen? More match play is the “more” the Tour should be pursuing. Not more bonuses, more committees, and more negotiations.
“Through” With This
By Jay Rigdon
How many non-major weeks really matter every year anymore? Not many. The Presidents Cup always cracks the list thanks to its combination of format, talent, and relative scarcity, but you wouldn’t always know it by the broadcast. That’s especially true when huge moments occur during Playing Through, which like most technological developments in recent memory was a tool that originally promised to improve our lives and has instead seemingly been deployed just to squeeze out the last possible drops of revenue for a conglomerate that didn’t really need more help in that department.
When you put the action in a tiny window with no sound, you’re saying golf matters less than an ad for a wet AMD treatment, a medical condition I would be completely and blissfully unaware of if not for my interest in golf. (Every year PGA Tour viewers effectively become board-certified experts in two or three obscure diseases and disorders. Anyone who watches four days of the Valspar from start to finish should receive a lab coat and a job at their nearest CVS as a courtesy.) It would be less galling if not for fans being forced to sit through the same ads for events like the Presidents Cup all year in the run-up. Ads that also occasionally aired during Playing Through, superseding whichever event was actually being played at the time. Ads that describe a momentous, must-watch event that will serve as one of the defining weeks of the year in golf. Hyperbole in advertising is forgivable. Hypocrisy, though, is not, and barring a shift in how NBC covers the Presidents Cup, that’s where we are.
This piece originally appeared in the Fried Egg Golf newsletter. Subscribe for free and receive golf news and insight every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
