For a moment, before everything went terribly wrong, the US Presidents Cup team jumped out to a 1 lead in the first game on Friday. That red flash was no surprise, given the firepower involved on the US side. But the first problem of a favorite can feel like a foregone conclusion – even when it is not.
That first meeting was a massive disagreement, after all. He played perhaps the two best golfers in the world (Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns, who are 1-2 in DataGolf’s). rankings) against the two best golfers in Canada (Nick Taylor and Corey Conners), putting into stark relief the imbalance between the respective sides.
More evidence of that imbalance? Consider that the top eight players on the US team are ranked higher than the No. 1 International (No. 14 in the world Si Woo Kim). Consider that Team USA has one player left home (No. 12 JJ Spaun) which is ranked higher than No. 1 International. Consider that the US team has two assistant captains (World No. 43 Gary Woodland and No. 50 Keegan Bradley) ranked higher in the world than both Conners (No. 55) and Taylor (No. 85).
And then consider that the US team did not win a point in the four games on Friday. A dream session for the International team turned into a nightmare for the US side, who now face a 7-3 deficit heading into the weekend.
So how do you get out of control? Slowly, then quickly, and then, in the miserable (or glorious, depending on your perspective) end, all at once.
The end of each match told the story of what came before. Here’s a snippet of all five:
Match I: Sam’s spinout
Nick Taylor picked an unlucky time to hit an unfortunate tee shot – on the last hole, with a 1-up lead over Scheffler-Burns’ shot, into the right side – but it felt like a fitting result for the two sides to walk away with a tie, as they had played to a stalemate most of the day.
That seemed likely as Conners threw sideways with his second, leaving Taylor to hit the third before the Americans had played their approach.
But then Taylor did something heroic, something specialSomething that adds an exclamation point to the first game of his Presidents Cup career: he stuffed his approach from 151 yards to kick-in range, providing redemption and then.
Still, it didn’t seem to matter. Burns – left looking at a birdie putt from just 20 feet – almost started those heroics. His putt, the line coupled with speed, did all but drop and instead popped up, turning what would have been a match-tying birdie 3 into a match-losing par 4 and leaving both he and Scheffler speechless.
Match II: Sungjae’s session
When they reached the 16th green, a match that felt in the control of the International team for several hours suddenly felt in doubt.
The high-powered duo of Sungjae Im and Hideki Matsuyama had won four holes in a row – 3-4-5-6 – to pull the match from 1-3 up. But the American side of Jacob Bridgeman and Russell Henley had held firm, and had reached the 16th hole only 2, and after each side had played two shots, they seemed soon 1 down; Matsuyama had 19 feet for par and Bridgeman had just 7.
But then came a classic reversal: Matsuyama’s try found the bottom of the cup as Bridgeman took the edge and cleared, bringing the match to a 3-2 conclusion.
If these results hold, Team USA will go 6-24 in the alternate shooting game in team events by 2023.
The most competitive session was Saturday at PCup ’24 in Montreal, when the United States went 3-1 after a 5-0 sweep by the Internationals on Friday.
6-24.
– James Colgan (@jamescolgan26) September 25, 2026
Match III: Out-Foxed
As the day’s action moved to the new hole, the lone red flag on the board belonged to Collin Morikawa and Wyndham Clark, who took a 1-up lead with a birdie at No. 12 and seemed determined to break the International deadlock.
But some match-play tropes are true, and one is this: the first ball usually wins the hole. That proved to be the case at No. 15, when Ryan Fox walked in a 14-footer for birdie and then watched as Morikawa missed from 13 feet. It was also the case at No. 16, when Fox walked in a 19-footer for birdie and Morikawa missed from 10. Clark almost hit his approach at No. 17, but Morikawa missed the 5-footer for birdie. When the sides have tied on the 18th, that match is officially yellow.
Match IV: Great Scott
It was particularly cruel as the only birdie recorded for the high-powered American duo of Cameron Young and Justin Thomas came after the whistle.
After Christiaan Bezuidenhout had made things official with a shocking 30-footer for birdie from the right side of the 16th green – they shook hands, cementing the result 3-and-2 – Young rapped his birdie putt anyway, out of practice or frustration, and found the bottom of the cup. (Some US fans cheered, whether as general encouragement or just confusion, it’s hard to say which).
Snedeker was asked after the pairing and said he wanted to keep both players in the lineup after what he saw from them Thursday.
“This is one of those things that as a captain you look back, maybe when this thing is over, maybe it wasn’t the right decision, but it seemed like the right decision at the time,” he said. “But love those guys. They beat their ass today. They just didn’t have the right timing that we wanted.”
Match V: Let’s go from here
Mere moments separated these last three layers of heartbreak: Fox ended the third match with a short putt at 18, then Bezuidenhout’s putt found the bottom at 16, and then, as it were: to hell with this whole dayXander Schauffele hit a 3-foot putt at No. 15, putting a quick, if undignified, end to the 4-and-3 drubbing he and partner Patrick Cantlay suffered at the hands of Si Woo Kim and Tom Kim.
“Fortunately the session is over,” Schauffele said after the shift. “And we have 70 percent of the points ahead of us.”
