LOOKING FOR THE SILVER LINING

Team International remains defiant after loss to the US in the Presidents Cup

- JIM MCCABE

To warm the souls of those passionate supporters who’ve maintained a vigil over the International Team in this 30-year Presidents Cup sojourn, there was an unforgettable one-day session that was the picture of perfection at Royal Montreal Golf Club recently.

A clean sweep of five foursomes matches – International Team magic that had never been seen in such dominating fashion for a very long time.

That the rout included wins over dynamic players ranked first (Scottie Scheffler, with Russell Henley) and second (Xander Schauffele, with Patrick Cantlay) in the world and featured triumphs by outlandish scores of 7 & 6, 6 & 5, and 5 & 4 seemingly sent a message that this time, finally, would be different. Players like Adam Scott, Hideki Matsuyama, Tom Kim, Mackenzie Hughes and Si Woo Kim performed like men possessed, fired up with the sole intent to end a US Team domination in the biennial team competition.

Alas, the magic could not continue into the weekend because from a 5-5 tie through two sessions (the Americans had kicked things off by winning all five four-ball games on the opening day), a strong American squad, which 12 members were ranked inside the world’s top-25, pulled away. By matching scores of 3-1, the Americans won both the morning four-ball and afternoon foursomes sessions on the third day to build a virtually insurmountable 11-7 lead. It was a Saturday in which Team USA’s nucleus of world top-10 players – Scheffler, Schauffele, Cantlay, and Collin Morikawa – factored in all six of those victories.