A great day for the Americans was a miserable one for the Presidents Cup – Australian Golf Digest

by Admin
September 27, 2024

[PHOTO: Tracy Wilcox]

The most affecting moment of the day came when Keegan Bradley buried the winning putt on 18 to cap a 5-0 day for the Americans. His outpouring represented a decade of pent-up emotion, the days of missing these teams by the skin of his teeth, of being denied the thing that he seems to love the most in professional golf. The most exciting moment of the day came when Scottie Scheffler and Tom Kim exchanged long birdie putts, and animated shouts in each other’s direction, on the seventh hole, inspiring a feeling that perhaps the International team had its Poulter, and perhaps we were in for a true battle, both in that match and in the broader event.

And that, sad to say, is as good as it’s going to get. At least for this weekend, and at least for the 2024 Presidents Cup.

To answer an obvious question with an even more obvious answer, yes, this thing is over. The 5-0 lead the Americans established means that their opponents would have to win the rest of the matches by a lopsided 15-10 margin in order to forge a tie, and the cold reality is that they’ll have to do so with an inferior team. The fact that big comebacks have happened in the past doesn’t apply in a situation where the Americans come loaded with top 20 players and major winners to spare; to beat these guys, you jump on them early and hold on for dear life. To do the opposite, as on Thursday, is to concede defeat. Nor does Royal Montreal Golf Club provide even a hint of the home-course advantage they imagined might bolster their cause, and that the Americans dutifully pretended was coming in the week leading up to play. Having been on the course all day, I can tell you it was little better than neutral (“sparse” or “half-hearted” would be a better descriptor), and Tod Leonard’s story of two International team wives trying to get a chant going and being stared at like they were playing a trombone inside a library is a perfectly representative example of how that played out. Imagine Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg, desperately scanning the horizon for the cavalry that would never come, and you get a sense of what it may have been like for Mike Weir hoping for some volume from outside the ropes.

Whatever happens from now on, it can’t reach the heights of those great moments from day one, because Bradley’s putt on 18 buried the last of the stakes. And as nice as this was for Jim Furyk, seeking redemption for the last time he led Americans into French-speaking territory, it was a miserable day for the Presidents Cup as a whole. In fact, you could argue it’s one of the toughest days for this event’s image… well, maybe ever. The fact that the Americans have won nine straight times spoke poorly of the competitive balance, yes, but the counter-argument went that the Internationals had at least kept it close in the past two Cups they’d hosted, in Melbourne and South Korea, coming a hair’s breadth each time from upsetting their opponents.

Well, we’re back in International territory, at least technically, and brother, it ain’t close.

And once they lose in Montreal, you can take it to the bank that they’ll lose at Medinah in two years – generously, this team is not close to being able to scare the Americans in America – which means the most optimistic thing you can say about the Presidents Cup is that maybe they’ll have a prayer at Kingston Heath in 2028. That little twig of optimism is more dismal than anything else, and you can bet that this result is only going to heighten calls for a format change. Watch this space. Hell, watch every space.

I write this with some regret, having just penned an essay arguing that in 20 years this tournament will be better than the Ryder Cup. Granted, I have two decades before I have to pay up on that one, but I’m already wishing I could have it back.

What’s particularly poignant about today is how tangible it all seemed. The matches were close! Every one of them went to 16, and three went to 18! Fairly late on the back nine, you could easily talk yourself into the Internationals swinging a couple of matches and holding a slim lead. But at every single critical moment, they failed where the Americans succeeded. Bradley hit a putt, Bezuidenhout missed a shorty on 17 to square his match, Schauffele made birdie on that same hole, etc. etc. etc. five devastating times in a row. In all, the Americans only won eight more holes than the Internationals all day, but the distribution was perfect, giving them narrow wins each time. The relative closeness is cold comfort – only the five points matter.

After pairings for Friday were announced, Captains Furyk and Weir sat for one of the most pointless press conferences you could imagine. It’s not like you could ask the American captain about the implications for the larger event… he was thrilled to be leading, and the last guy to ask him if it might be better for the Internationals to win one of these things got some choice words in return. On Weir’s side, he couldn’t admit to the devastation he must be feeling after two years of sincere preparation, much less consider the fate of the event, because a good captain never quits and the last thing his team needs is to see their leader giving up hope. So we got a charade – a necessary charade, on both sides, but a charade nonetheless.

Barring miracles (and even that ray of hope I offer under duress), what remains is a funeral march for the International side. Losing won’t be fun, but the real loss here comes in the big picture. What the Presidents Cup needs is time to succeed, and that time is measured in decades, but as pressure mounts, what you need most of all is for the tournament as it exists today to throw us a bone. What transpired today is the worst-case scenario, and presents a clear and present danger to the rosy future some of us like to imagine. What can you say to the doubters? What’s left but blind faith? In the world of team matchplay, it takes years to plan, and years to hope, but only a single day to watch it crumble, and to push the tangible horizon back into the distant mist.