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Si Woo Kim celebrates during his foursomes win with Tom Kim (Luke Hales/Getty Images)
MEDINAH, Ill. — The format that baffles and bemuses American golfers in international team competitions continued its irritating trend on Friday at the Presidents Cup, where the International side swept the foursomes and emerged with a rare lead entering the weekend at Medinah Country Club.
By winning all five foursomes sessions on Friday, the Internationals took a 7-3 lead into Saturday’s marathon double session and left the Americans wondering once again what it is about the alternate-shot format that continually haunts them.
“It’s the million-dollar question, right?” U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker said of the Americans’ historic foursomes troubles. “I don’t know. I know our guys are committed to it. Our guys practice it hard leading up to this. I feel like we had the right matchups … and some days the ball just doesn’t want to go in. I can’t put my finger on it. I really wish I could. I tried my best to do it, and we have another session to go out there and try to figure it out.
“I think these guys are ready for that challenge, but to answer your question, I don’t really — it’s such a hard question to answer because I can’t really point to one specific thing of why it’s not happening.”
Also in today’s DD …
Presidents Cup Day 3 morning four-ball pairings
It is true that unless you make a habit of playing Muirfield in Scotland — where foursomes is required for the majority of its play — the alternate-shot format is awkward and a style you’d rarely otherwise see because it requires you to rely on a partner to play your shots instead of playing your own ball.
It can be maddening, as U.S. teams continue to lament their results in the format. It has often been the kryptonite for U.S. road teams in Ryder Cups, but even lately the Americans have stumbled at home, too.
They did again Friday, extending an alarming trend in these competitions that has seen them get dominated.
“It’s such a small sample,” said Xander Schauffele, who along with Patrick Cantlay, has considerable foursomes experience with a 7-4 together before Friday’s loss. “Give me 200 looks and let me know what my record is after that. I’m going to die before that happens, so unfortunately, we’re not going to get that look.
“You do feel — whether you put pressure on yourself to make something happen or a couple weird things happen on the course — you’ve only got 12 holes to like regroup and try to get something done. There’s something to be said about getting off to a good start and being in sync early and then kind of riding the wave through.”
The Americans were never able to get much going Friday. They won just 12 holes and were only leading following six of them.
Americans Sam Burns and Scottie Scheffler fall to Canadians Corey Conners and Nick Taylor (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler saw his overall foursomes record fall to 1-8-1 after losing 1-down with partner Sam Burns to Canadians Corey Conners and Nick Taylor. It was Taylor’s 151-yard 9-iron on the 18th hole to 2 feet for a conceded par that sealed the 1-up win after his poor drive forced Conners to pitch out. Burns’ 15-foot birdie chance to tie the match lipped out.
“That was just a poor swing at the wrong time,” Taylor said of his tee shot. “I went and peeked at what Corey was dealing with but knowing if we just give ourselves a chance at 4, it was pretty difficult pin. We knew they were in the first cut, so it was going to be tough to hit it close. To redeem myself was a nice thing.”
Sungjae Im and Hideki Matsuyama put the first gold win on the board in the second match with a 3-and-2 victory over Russell Henley and Jacob Bridgeman. Adam Scott and Christiaan Bezuidenhout were also 3-and-2 winners over Justin Thomas and Cam Young, closing out the match with a long birdie from off the green on 16 by Bezuidenhout.
The South Korean juggernaut of Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim avenged their foursomes defeat in 2024 to Schauffele and Cantlay in commanding fashion with a 4-and-3 win in the last match out.
It was Open champion Ryan Fox who preserved the foursomes sweep with a nervy 5-foot par putt on the 18th hole for a 1-up win with partner Min Woo Lee over Collin Morikawa and Wyndham Clark. Fox and Lee were the only International team to trail on the back nine but flipped the match with Fox birdie putts on 15 and 16.
“I think sometimes in match play it’s nice being the one to be able to put some pressure on,” Fox said. “I hit two really, really good putts. I was probably glad the one on 16 hit the hole, and I think Min wanted the one coming back, but it doesn’t matter now. It’s amazing what can happen if you put a little bit of pressure on.
“It was one of those things that I felt really good over the putter most of the day. Those were probably two of the putts that I felt good over, and it was great to see them go in, and then knocked a pretty important one in on the last as well.”
To blame the Americans’ poor showing in foursomes on lack of familiarity would be misguided. Seven of the eight Americans who played Friday afternoon have foursomes experience. Only Bridgeman had never played foursomes previously at this level and six of the other U.S. players took part in foursomes last year at the Ryder Cup.
Of course, last year’s Ryder Cup foursomes was a nightmare, as the Americans managed just a 2-6 record against Europe, digging a hole that was too big to emerge from despite a valiant Sunday singles charge. In Italy in 2023, the U.S. went 1-7 in foursomes play, getting swept in the opening session. At the 2024 Presidents Cup in Montreal, the U.S. was also swept 5-0 in Friday foursomes.
Going back to 2023, the Americans are now 6-24 in foursomes. Take it back a year to the 2022 Presidents Cup, when Scheffler played the format for the first time, the record is 12-27. That year, when the U.S. went 6-3, is the last time the Americans won foursomes overall in a cup competition.
More perplexing: it’s not like the International side has more experience playing the format.
“Personally, I really enjoy the format,” said Scott, who played with his 20th different partner in Bezuidenhout across 12 Presidents Cup appearances. “I think I’ve had better success in this format than the other. But I have to probably give credit to the support staff who work on pairings and captains and the assistants, of putting the best pairings they can out.
“I don’t really know the secret sauce that they have, but they’ve done a helluva job.”
All of which makes you wonder what the Americans are getting wrong.
The 7-3 deficit is the biggest the U.S. has faced as this point since 1998 at Royal Melbourne — the only American defeat in 15 previous Presidents Cups. It is the team’s largest deficit at home since trailing 6½-5 ½ in 2005. The Americans also trailed 6½-3½ to the Internationals through two days in 2019 at Royal Melbourne.
“We obviously had a great day,” said International captain Geoff Ogilvy. “Didn’t expect that to happen, but I guess we’ve got experience from 2024 having a Friday like that. …
“It’s obviously enjoyable to have a day like that on the golf course, but we reset and start again.”
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U.S. has 8 matches to chip away at deficit
Saturday morning will send out four four-ball matches starting at 8:02 a.m. ET on Golf Channel followed in the afternoon by four foursomes matches on NBC at 2:15 p.m. ET.
With so much at stake in a four-point hole, U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker is putting faith in his 21-year-old rookie Jackson Koivun and veteran leader Justin Thomas in the lead-off four-balls match against the International pair of Min Woo Lee and Sungjae Im. Koivun and Thomas won together on Thursday while Lee and Im let a potential point slip away in the first match of the week.
Out second for the Internationals is the unbeaten South Korean pairing of Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim, who will put their 2-0 mark this week on the line against American double-major winners Collin Morikawa and Wyndham Clark who are 1-1 with a four-ball win this week.
Snedeker shook up his third pairing, putting together Cameron Young and Chris Gotterup who have seven PGA Tour wins between them in the last 14 months but have yet to pick up a point this week. Ogilvy kept the chemistry of the Canadian duo of Corey Conners and Nick Taylor, who picked up a foursomes point on Friday.
After leading off the first two sessions, American heavyweights Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns will go off last in the morning against the Japanese pair of Hideki Matsuyama and Ryo Hisatsune, who are a combined 3-0 this week.
“Obviously, it didn’t go great,” Snedeker said of the Friday sweep that leaves his favored team in a 7-3 hole. “I feel like our guys played pretty well, all in all. I know the scoreboard doesn’t reflect it, but we’re only one-third of the way through this thing. There’s a lot of golf left to play.
“We’ve got a lot of high-character guys in our room. I love the way the guys competed today. It’s a long golf tournament. I keep telling those guys this is a football game and we’re not even at halftime yet. We’ve got three more sessions to go, a lot of golf in front of us. I’m really confident in our guys. I’m really confident in what they bring to the table.”
Ogilvy was an assistant in 2024 when the Internationl side swept the Friday session to climb back into a tie heading into the weekend. So he isn’t reading too much into where things stand with two-thirds of the points still at stake.
“You’ve got to acknowledge that we had a really good day and you’ve got to feel good about it and build some confidence out of that, but you also have to acknowledge that there’s 20 points left on the board,” Ogilvy said. “(Saturday) is a very long day. It’s one of the longest days in golf. They say to qualify for the U.S. Open is a long day, but Saturday at the Presidents Cup is a very long day. So energy conservation and sort of resetting to go is probably the order of the day. So we do both.”
Ogilvy opted to sit major winners Adam Scott and Ryan Fox along with Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Nico Echevarria in the morning. It’s the first session that 12-time Presidents Cupper Scott, 46, will sit out since the Saturday four-ball session in 2017. On Friday, Scott played in his record 53rd Presidents Cup match, surpassing Phil Mickelson for the most in the event’s history.
Snedeker benched his historically power pairing of Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay in the morning along with Russell Henley and Jacob Bridgeman.
Four afternoon foursomes matches will follow the morning session on NBC. After Saturday’s matches, 18 of the 30 points in the competition will have been contested. The U.S. needs 15 points to retain the Presidents Cup and the International side needs 15 ½ to win the Cup.
Sunday will feature 12 singles matches on NBC starting at noon ET.