MONTREAL – Hoping for a reversal of fortunes, International captain Mike Weir sent out the same eight players from the morning for the afternoon foursomes at the Presidents Cup.
It’s the first time that’s happened in Presidents Cup history.
That means, even after the Internationals dropped the morning session, the quartet of Jason Day, Min Woo Lee, Ben An and Christiaan Bezuidenhout will sit the entire day for the home team at Royal Montreal. Lee, a captain’s pick for the first time, hasn’t played since Thursday afternoon.
An, Day and Bezuidenhout all were part of winning alternate-shot teams on Friday that lifted the Internationals to an improbable sweep that knotted the score at the halfway point of the competition.
It’s a bold move from Weir, who said he was sticking to his plan set at the start of the day even after his team lost the better-ball session, 3-1, and now trails by two points overall, 8-6. Foursomes has historically been a more difficult format for the home team; prior to Friday, when the Internationals claimed their first foursomes win since 2005, they had been outscored by the Americans by 33 points in that format since 2007.
“They’re playing well,” Weir said. “We like the matchups, we like the pairings, and we’re rolling with it.”
All three Canadians will be sent out for the afternoon – even though Taylor Pendrith and Mackenzie Hughes were, statistically, the two worst players on the course on Saturday morning. Together, Hughes and partner Corey Conners combined to make just a single birdie in the morning fourballs.
As for U.S. captain Jim Furyk, he will reheat three of his original foursomes pairings from Friday, with only Collin Morikawa (formerly with Sahith Theegala) and Sam Burns (did not play) teaming up for the first time in alternate shot. Theegala will sit both sessions on Saturday after struggling mightily with his ball-striking on Friday.
Bradley, meanwhile, was the second-best player from tee to green on Saturday morning (during what turned out to be a 4-and-3 loss to Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim) but will spend the afternoon on the bench.
At this stage of the competition, it appears that both captains are leaning into their core players.
Furyk will use Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa and Patrick Cantlay – three of the top four players in the world – for all five sessions. Weir will go the distance with Hideki Matsuyama, Sungjae Im and Adam Scott, their top three automatic qualifiers, as well as Canadians Conners and Pendrith.