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World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler sat out the afternoon foursomes Saturday (Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
MEDINAH, Ill. — Scottie Scheffler put the “sat” in Saturday afternoon.
The best player in the world sat on the sideline Saturday afternoon, cheering on his teammates but unable to do much else at Medinah Country Club, where he will need to summon some of his greatness on Sunday and get help from others in order to avoid a monumental Presidents Cup upset.
Meanwhile, U.S. captain Brandt Snedker second-guessed some of his own decisions and blamed himself for a 10½-7½ deficit heading into the final session — the biggest ever at home for the Americans at a Presidents Cup.
Snedeker didn’t exactly channel his inner Ben Crenshaw — who in 1999 told the masses on Saturday night at Brookline that he had a good feeling about his team’s Ryder Cup comeback the next day — but he did his best to deflect attention from his players and set up a Sunday surge.
“I tried to work my tail off to put these guys in the best situation possible, and I don’t think I’ve done a very good job this week to be where we are right now,” said Snedker, the U.S. captain who was part of the American Ryder Cup team that blew a big final-day lead at Medinah in 2012.
“I hold myself to a high standard. I don’t think I’ve put these guys in situations where I was trying to, I should say, or wanted to, to give them the comfort level they needed. I mean, there’s several different ways, whether it’s through matchups, whether it’s through whatever. There’s a thousand different ways I can think of right now. I’ve been honestly second guessing myself a lot to be in this situation.”
Also in today’s DD …
Presidents Cup Sunday singles pairings
Snedker said it was a tough decision to sit Scheffler in the afternoon foursomes session. He got a bit defensive when questioned about the foursomes pairing of Russell Henley and Jacob Bridgeman, who lost twice in the format. And it’s fair to wonder if he should have put Scheffler and Burns together in Friday foursomes considering they were 1-3-1 in the format before this week.
While it’s odd to not have the top-ranked player in the world competing in every session, Scheffler was not himself on Saturday morning during a four-ball match that he won with partner Burns over Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama and Ryo Hisatsune.
Scheffler made just two birdies playing his own ball — the second with a critical putt on the 15th hole to square the match — and the Americans needed to birdie the last three holes to rally for a 2-and-1 victory. That gave them a 2-1-1 advantage in the morning session and pulled them a point closer (8½-5½) following Friday’s foursomes 5-0 wipeout that built a 7-3 International lead.
With the alternate-shot format looming — Scheffler is stunningly just 1-8-1 in international team foursomes including that Friday loss — it seemed reasonable to give him a break.
It marked the first time Scheffler has sat out a session at the Presidents Cup. Aside from his first Ryder Cup in 2021 when he was the last player selected to the team as a rookie, Scheffler has missed only one session at a Ryder Cup, sitting the afternoon out on Saturday in Rome following a morning 9-and-7 beating along with Brooks Koepka in foursomes.
The Internet didn’t hold back on Scheffler’s benching (Source: X)
“We’re always prepared for anything,” Scheffler said in a TV interview following his four-ball victory Saturday morning. “I’ve played a lot of golf this year. I’ll just sit there and cheer the boys on. Look forward to watching Sam, he’s one of my favorite players to watch. And get some rest and get ready for tomorrow.”
While Scheffler watched, Burns (his partner for three sessions) and Wyndham Clark lost to Ryan Fox and Min Woo Lee, 3 and 2, after holding an early 2-up lead that saw them still tied through 12 holes.
In the other key foursomes match, Canadians Corey Conners and Nick Taylor twice rallied from 3 down deficits — they were 3 down after the first three holes and again through 10 — to win 1 up over Russell Henley and Jacob Bridgeman.
The Canadians won four of five holes from Nos. 11-15 to take a 1-up lead. At the 18th, Conners poured in a 5-footer for par to preserve the 1-up lead and the three-point advantage going into singles.
Had the Americans won the hole and halved the match, the score would be a more manageable 10-8.
“Nick and I battled hard all day, especially towards the end,” Conners said. “I just tried to stick to the routine. It was a pretty straight putt, just get it rolling, and felt good to see that one go in. Get the point on the board for the International Team, having come back the way that we did.”
The Americans managed just two of the four afternoon points despite leading in all four matches through seven holes. The U.S. also led in every match at one point in the morning session but only managed to chip one point off the International lead in the end.
“We had to sort of weather the storm early in both sessions, and it was amazing for the boys to sort of get us out of the day relatively unscathed,” said International captain Geoff Ogilvy.
Saturday extended the U.S. team’s foursomes misery in international competitiob, which has now seen them go 2-7 at Medinah, 2-8 last year at the Bethpage Ryder Cup and 1-7 at the 2023 Ryder Cup in Rome. They were also 3-6 in the format at the 2024 Presidents Cup.
In the other afternoon matches, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele came off a morning rest and got back on their strong foursomes track (now a career 8-5) with a 2-and-1 victory over the top International partnership of Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim, who were 3-0 together going into the match.
Cameron Young and Chris Gotterup put on a masterful performance, making six birdies and an eagle in alternate-shot through 14 holes to easily dispatch Adam Scott and Sungjae Im, 6 and 4.
The Internationals, whose lone victory in the Presidents Cup came in 1998 (the U.S. is 13-1-1 overall), need just 5 points out of 12 to win.
As for Scheffler, Snedeker said the decision was not pre-planned to sit him.
“It kind of unfolded,” the U.S. captain said. “I had some ideas about Scottie — he puts the world on his shoulders and he puts his whole team on his shoulders and takes a lot on. I was really trying to get him some energy for (Sunday). I know (Sunday) is going to be a big day.
“It’s obviously a tough decision, really hard decision to sit the best player in the world and probably one of the best players I’ve ever seen in person. I just want to put him in the best situation tomorrow to go out there and have a great day and get some rest.”
Scheffler will go off fourth Sunday in singles and it was a curious decision Snedeker made in putting his name up and allowing Oglivy to match up who he wanted against the 22-time PGA Tour winner. Ogilvy countered with statistically his worst player, Nico Echavarria, who sat out all day Friday and Saturday after a Thursday four-ball loss. There’s nothing to lose and everything to gain putting a player in a matchup you don’t expect to win anyway.
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Americans need 8 of 12 to win back Prez Cup
With a front-loaded singles lineup, U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker hopes his team can build momentum and rally from a three-point deficit on Sunday at Medinah No. 3.
The Americans need to double their score thus far to forge a tie with the International team. Unlike the Ryder Cup, the previous winner doesn’t get to retain the Presidents Cup in the event of a tie, so the two teams would share the golden prize. A team needs to get to 15½ to win the Cup outright.
So needing to win two-thirds of the 12 singles points available on Sunday to get there, Snedeker isn’t holding back his stars.
Cameron Young will lead off against Japan’s Ryo Hisatsune to try an give the home team an immediate spark. Right behind him might be the most interesting matchup of the day, with U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark taking on South Korean sparkplug Tom Kim.
Justin Thomas, the emotional leader for the U.S. side, is out third against Canadian Corey Conners, who has won two of four matches this week but lost to Thomas in the opening four-balls on Thursday.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler — fresh from his afternoon off — will bat cleanup in the batting order and face sacrificial lamb Nico Echavarria of Colombia, who hasn’t played since Thursday. It was a massive miscalculation by Snedeker to put Scheffler’s name out first and let International captain Geoff Ogilvy counter with his least productive player to save his better stars for more critical matchups. Anything Echavarria achieves against Scheffler would be gravy for the Internationals.
“(Nico) was pretty motivated when he found out he wasn’t playing today,” Ogilvy said of Echavarria. “He’s excited to go out tomorrow. He didn’t know this was going to happen, so he’s learned this now in the team room. We hope he’s really excited. It’s a big opportunity for him to play the best player in the world, and we feel like he’s ready for it.”
The middle four matches feature a meaty menu of opponents: Sam Burns against Korean Sungjae Im; Chris Gotterup against South Africa’s Christiaan Bezuidenhout; Collin Morikawa against Japanese veteran Hideki Matsuyama; and Patrick Cantlay against Australian Adam Scott.
“We led pretty heavy; we’ve got some studs up there at the top of the lineup that are going to go out there and hopefully put a bunch of red on the board, get this crowd behind us,” said Snedeker. “We’ve got some studs throughout the whole lineup. We’ve got some guys in there to do what they’re meant to do.
“I know what kind of players we have in there. We’ve got a bunch of guys that have won a lot of golf on the PGA Tour. They’ve won major championships. They know what championship golf looks like. This is a championship type golf course. It’s going to play tough tomorrow. They’ve got the mettle it takes to go out there and do the right things.”
With the captains alternating picking their singles players through the 12-man lineup, allowing the opposing captain to counter with the matchup he wants, Ogilvy had the luxury of mixing in his stars where he wanted them.
“We would imagine that Brandt would have led pretty strong because in their situation he has to lead pretty strong. So we had some ideas,” Ogilvy said of his placement strategy. “You can kind of have a little bit of control with half of this pairings thing, but you can lose control pretty quick as the whole thing — it’s like a snake draft. That’s interesting. We had a sort of general idea, but we just let it unfold as it goes.”
On paper it looks like the International team might have the upper hand in a few of the late matches.
Jackson Koivun, the 21-year-old rookie, will face the Internationals top points earner Si Woo Kim of South Korea in the ninth match.
The winless American tandem of rookie Jacob Bridgeman and disappointing veteran Russell Henley will face, respectively, Australia’s Min Woo Lee (2½ points so far) and Canada’s Nick Taylor (2 points). Henley was in a similar pivotal late position in last year’s Ryder Cup and blew a late lead against Ireland’s Shane Lowry, who buried a cup-clinching putt for a halve on the 18th green after Henley left a makeble chance to win the match short.
If anything is still left in the balance at the end, the anchor match pits two Open champions against each other — Xander Schauffele and New Zealand’s Ryan Fox.