Mike Weir’s curious determination to expire the identical group for all 36 holes on Saturday drew ire from golf followers.
Cliff Hawkins/Getty Photos
MONTREAL — It was quiet for a second on the sixteenth inexperienced at Royal Montreal early Saturday afternoon.
Minutes earlier, Xander Schauffele and Tony Finau had dispatched the Internationals in a four-ball match 10 yards to the best, on the sixteenth. Minutes later, Patrick Cantlay and Sam Burns would shut out the Internationals 15 yards to the left, on the seventeenth. However on this second, the one dialog that stuffed the sixteenth bleachers surrounded the completely unathletic occasions taking place a couple of soccer fields away, the place captains Jim Furyk and Mike Weir chosen this Presidents Cup’s ultimate 4 alternate shot pairings.
One after the other, the pair ticked by means of the afternoon’s matchups, which had been shortly posted to the video boards contained in the event gates. However as soon as the information started to flow into, a confused quiet fell over the group.
“Wait,” one fan requested. “Is that proper?”
Certainly, it was proper — and it was the strategic determination of the event.
The Individuals had thrown a fastball from their four-ball to their alternate shot pairings, flipping out Tony Finau, Wyndham Clark and Keegan Bradley for Brian Harman, Max Homa and Russell Henley. However the Internationals had thrown … a replay?
Weir had chosen the very same pairings for the afternoon’s alternate shot as he had for the morning’s four-ball. Simply as that they had within the morning, Hideki Matsuyama and Sungjae Im, Taylor Pendrith and Adam Scott, Corey Conners and Mackenzie Hughes, and Tom and Si Woo Kim could be liable for bringing glory house for the Internationals within the afternoon.
For the primary time in Presidents Cup historical past, a captain had elected to play the very same pairings twice in the identical day.
At first blush, the technique had some deserves. For one factor, the Internationals had been driving an enormous wave of alternate shot momentum from their five-zero victory the day before today. And no one may fault Weir, captain of a Presidents Cup Worldwide aspect with just one victory in 30 years, for residing and dying together with his finest gamers.
However there have been additionally a couple of apparent caveats: particularly, that the pairing selections left the Internationals extraordinarily liable to fatigue. It’d been a protracted day for the Internationals earlier than they reached the primary tee for Saturday afternoon’s alternate shot, because of a pre-4 a.m. wakeup and 90-minute fog delay. Then many of the Worldwide aspect went out and performed poorly in a start-and-stop opening session. Solely the so-called “Kim brothers” — Tom and Si Woo (no relation) — had been victorious within the early session, and their common proclivity for high-octane celebration appeared to depart each liable to a late fade in a 36-hole day.
It was a danger. A giant one. Possibly even a Presidents Cup-deciding one.
IT WAS QUIET FOR A MOMENT ON THE 18TH GREEN ON SATURDAY EVENING.
However just for a second.
Patrick Cantlay had simply despatched a 15-footer slicing by means of the evening sky and straight into the middle of the cup, a devastating last-hole birdie that pressured a Si Woo Kim make from practically the very same distance simply to halve the match.
The Worldwide crowd, which had spent the higher a part of the final a number of hours hurling insults in Cantlay’s course, instantly fell silent. Cantlay’s subsequent scream ripped by means of the air like a thunderclap.
A minute later, Kim missed his birdie strive, ending the match with a thud. A morning that had brimmed with such promise for the Internationals now bled into an early night uninteresting with heartbreak. The Internationals trailed by 4 factors, the identical deficit a extra inexperienced aspect confronted on the highway two years in the past.
The Worldwide momentum of the early afternoon — leads in three of 4 matches, a tied rating within the different — had been extinguished in significantly heartbreaking style. Three of the afternoon’s 4 matches wanted 18 holes to find out a winner, and all however considered one of them featured a late cost by the Individuals to steal a full level. On a day that started in darkness, the worst fears of Weir’s 36-hole technique had come to life within the final whisps of daylight.
“No, nothing’s up health-wise with Jason [Day],” Weir mentioned when requested in regards to the determination to sit down one of many Worldwide stalwarts, Jason Day, for the total day. “We went 5-0 yesterday and had loads of momentum.”
Weir mentioned the choice was strategic, electing to not elaborate on specifics aside from “making an attempt to get our greatest guys on the market” and that the group knew “fairly early” how the rostering would look.
“We talked it by means of, and that was it,” he mentioned. “We had a plan. We had a plan for another issues too. That’s why we meet and undergo these items. However nothing health-related that left any of the opposite guys out.”
In the end, we’ll by no means know if any of the opposite 4 members of the Worldwide group — Day, Min Woo Lee, Christian Bezuidenhout and Ben An — would have turned the tide on Saturday afternoon. We will, nonetheless, know the prevailing sentiment that got here from each side of a marathon Saturday on the Presidents Cup: exhaustion.
“I’m fairly drained, yeah,” Pendrith, the primary of the day’s finishers, volunteered.
“I’m very drained proper now, however I’m not going to lie, I’m so motivated to come back out tomorrow,” mentioned Tom Kim, the firecracker, who later admitted his recreation left him a bit down the stretch on Saturday.
“I’m 54, I simply walked 36, yeah I’m drained,” mentioned U.S. captain Jim Furyk with a smile.
“To Jim’s level,” even Weir agreed. “Yeah, I’m drained.”
There received’t be a lot relaxation for the weary. The ultimate session of this Presidents Cup — 12 singles matches — begins in just some hours. Which may be excellent news for the Internationals, who get up on Sunday in an 11-7 gap after shedding 3-1 in each of Saturday’s periods.
“They’ll be prepared,” Weir mentioned. “Our guys aren’t distracted this time, they’re prepared.”
In different phrases, Weir has a brand new technique for getting over a brutal Presidents Cup Saturday.
Wash and rinse.
Simply don’t repeat.
