American sweep! Team USA wins all 5
matches in the opening session of Presidents Cup
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[September 27, 2024]
By DOUG FERGUSON
MONTREAL (AP) — The Presidents Cup matches were close. The score
after the opening session was not.
The Americans clung to a 1-up lead in all five matches Thursday when
they delivered shot after shot, putt after putt, until this already
lopsided series took a familiar turn.
United States 5, International 0.
The Americans swept the first day of fourballs matches at Royal
Montreal behind a feisty Scottie Scheffler, late heroics from Xander
Schauffele and plenty of help from the putting-challenged
International team.
It was the third time they shut out the Internationals on the first
day, and the first time since 2000. The Americans went on to an
11-point victory that year.
“We're excited with our start — high fives, celebrate — and we're
going to keep the pressure on,” U.S. captain Jim Furyk said.
International captain Mike Weir had a plan for the opening two days
and he didn’t see anything on the course to make any changes for the
foursomes matches on Friday. Adam Scott has never been on a winning
team since his debut in 2003, and he wasn't about to lose hope.
“The best news is there’s tomorrow for us. It’s not over,” Scott
said. “We’re going to have to come out, fight really hard, find that
gear, win a session and get going in the right direction. The score
line looks rough. But I don't think there was that much difference
in it today.”
Three matches reached the 18th green. One ended on No. 17. The
shortest match was Scheffler and Russell Henley getting the last
word in a 3-and-2 win over Tom Kim and Sungjae Im.
Scheffler and Henley never trailed in what was the spiciest match of
an otherwise flat day, the Canadian crowd mostly silent after
Mackenzie Hughes, who sat out the first session, chugged a beer on
the opening tee to get them going.
Scheffler and Kim are good friends who play plenty of money games in
Dallas. On the par-3 seventh hole, the 22-year-old Kim holed a putt
from just inside 30 feet and did a pirouette on the green,
screaming, “Let's Go!”
Scheffler matched the birdie from about the same length, and the
world's No. 1 player turned toward Kim and screamed, “What was
that?”
It got testy on the next hole when Kim made another long birdie,
celebrated wildly and then he and Im walked over to the ninth tee
without even watching Scheffler putt.
“It’s the same thing I would have done at home if he had made a putt
... and he celebrated like that. So it’s all in good fun. We enjoy
competing against each other,” Scheffler said. “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.”
The Internationals never looked like they would win the session.
They weren't expecting a shutout, either.
Taylor Pendrith, one of two Canadians in the lineup, made birdie on
the 12th as he and Christiaan Bezuidenhout squared their match
against Keegan Bradley and Wyndham Clark.
[to top of second column] |
United States team member Scottie Scheffler, left, reacts after his
birdie putt on the seventh hole as International team members Tom
Kim, second from right, and Sungjae Im, of South Korea, congratulate
him during their first round four-ball match at the Presidents Cup
golf tournament at the Royal Montreal Golf Club in Montreal,
Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press via AP)
Schauffele and Tony Finau missed 3-foot par putts
on the 16th and their opening match against Jason Day and Byeong Hun
An was all square.
It could have gone either way. But it only got worse for the
Internationals.
Bezuidenhout missed three 7-foot putts in a span of four holes that
kept his side from squaring the match. Scott missed a pair of putts
from the 12-foot range.
The Americans delivered the goods.
Schauffele atoned for his short miss by hitting his tee shot to 7
feet to a back pin on the par-3 17th for a birdie, and then hit his
approach to 3 feet on the 18th to close out the match.
“Tony got the party started on the front nine and he had my back all
day,” Schauffele said. “I figured it was my time to have his back.”
Bradley, the Ryder Cup captain for next year who has gone 10 years
since his last cup competition, holed a 35-foot putt on the 13th and
secured a 1-up win over Scott and Min Woo Lee with a 10-foot putt.
Emotions were pouring from him.
“It was 10 years of pent-up energy of not playing these,” Bradley
said. “I just had such a blast out there today.”
Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala rallied from a 1-down deficit
through 11 holes when Morikawa birdied the 12th and 14th holes.
Theegala secured it with an approach to just inside 3 feet. He made
the putt, the first time all day he retrieved his golf ball from the
cup.
In the anchor match, Patrick Cantlay was relentless as ever and Sam
Burns made a 10-foot birdie on the 13th hole that put them 2 up, and
Corey Conners and Hideki Matsuyama could never cut into the lead.
The Americans also swept the opening session in 1994. This was the
eighth time in the last nine Presidents Cups they had a lead after
the first day.
Friday has five foursomes matches. Furyk is keeping two teams
together, including Scheffler and Henley, with Cantlay and
Schauffele looking to build on their foursomes record.
“The last couple road games have been close,” Cantlay said. “I think
it's a huge statement. I think we need to build on that tomorrow.”
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