Weir adds Canadian flavor to Presidents Cup, U.S. leave out Thomas

[September 04, 2024]  (Reuters) -Mike Weir named fellow Canadians Corey Conners, Taylor Pendrith and Mackenzie Hughes to his International Team for this month's Presidents Cup on home soil while matchplay specialist Justin Thomas was notably left off the U.S. squad on Tuesday.
 
The Canadian trio were added as captain's picks along with South Africa's Christiaan Bezuidenhout, South Korea's Kim Si-woo and Australia's Min Woo Lee to the 12-player team that will face Jim Furyk's powerhouse U.S. side from Sept. 26-29 in Montreal. 

Jun 2, 2024; Hamilton, Ontario, CAN; Mackenzie Hughes hits his tee shot at the fourth hole during the final round of the RBC Canadian Open golf tournament. Mandatory Credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports/File Photo

This marks the first time in Presidents Cup history in which three Canadian players will compete for the International Team.

Of the six captain's picks, Hughes and Lee are first-time participants, with Kim making his Presidents Cup debut in 2017, and Bezuidenhout, Conners and Pendrith doing so in 2022.

Pendrith earned the first win of his PGA Tour career at The CJ Cup Byron Nelson and had five other top-10 finishes in 2024 while advancing to the Tour Championship for the first time. Conners and Hughes each had three top-10 finishes this year.

In 2024, Bezuidenhout had a runner-up finish at The American Express, Kim had a pair of top-10 finishes and Lee enjoyed the best finishes of his PGA Tour career with matching T2 efforts at the Cognizant Classic and the Rocket Mortgage Classic.

Furyk followed the U.S. Presidents Cup team standings to the letter in rounding out his squad by naming Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley, Sam Burns, Tony Finau, Brian Harman, Russell Henley and Max Homa as his captain's picks.

This will be the third Presidents Cup team for Finau, second for Bradley, Burns and Homa while Harman and Henley are making their debuts.

Thomas, who has played three times each in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup, did not make the team despite qualifying for last week's Tour Championship where he would have placed seventh if all 30 players in the field started at level par.

The two-times major champion was a controversial Ryder Cup captain's pick last year by Zach Johnson, who selected him over players higher in the standings despite a lackluster season in which he missed the season-ending playoffs.

The 2024 edition of the Presidents Cup, a biennial event that pits a U.S. team against a lineup of international players from outside Europe, will be played from Sept. 26-29.

The U.S. are 12-1-1 in the Ryder Cup-style competition with their only loss coming at Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Australia in 1998.

(Reporting by Frank Pingue in TorontoEditing by Toby Davis)

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