Internationals simply outplayed at Presidents Cup, but future looks bright

ÎLE BIZARD, Que. — For a brief moment Sunday afternoon, if you squinted hard, there was a chance that the International Team at the 2024 Presidents Cup might have been able to actually do it. They faced a four-point deficit heading into the day, and despite the first match being out of reach from the jump, there was some momentum.

That, however, was short lived. The march to the inevitable was on. The American side, again, won the Presidents Cup. 

Jim Furyk’s side defeated Mike Weir’s Internationals 18.5-11.5 at Royal Montreal. This was the 10th straight triumph for Team USA at this competition, with the record now 13-1-1 in the American’s favour.  

“These guys get along so well, but as you know, they can flat out play. They kicked a lot of ass out there,” Furyk said. “When it got tough, any time the Internationals put some pressure on us, they played their asses off for us. I'm just so proud to be a part of it.” 

The score was lopsided, but the margins were razor thin throughout the week.  

“That's what makes it tough because we know how close it was,” Weir said. “We know a couple things go our way, and it could have at least started the day quite a bit different today, and who knows if we wouldn't have been in such a deficit.” 

Sunday started with Xander Schauffele ripping out of the gates, making five birdies in a row on the front nine and being 5-up through nine holes. He defeated Jason Day 4 and 3. 

Keegan Bradley ended up clinching the winning point for the Americans against Si Woo Kim on 18 in a bit of sweet revenge for Bradley. Famously, Bradley was left off last year’s American Ryder Cup team (which made for an emotionally charged bit of the Netflix Full Swing docuseries) and was recently named the captain for next year’s Ryder Cup squad. He was initially an assistant captain to Furyk for this year before he won a FedExCup Playoffs event and earned a pick from Furyk instead.  

Bradley’s caddie Scott Vail is, ironically, from Oshawa, Ont. He told Sportsnet.ca with a smile that he actually has an American passport, too, so to have won alongside plenty of his closest friends on the PGA Tour was extra special, even on Canadian soil.  

“(Bradley) hit a lot of good putts that didn’t go in and made it a little bit interesting at the end, but the better player won today,” Vail said. “These guys are my guys. They’re my boys here.”  

For a while it seemed like the cup-clinching point would come from the Patrick Cantlay versus Taylor Pendrith match which, in a stroke of bad luck, would have made for two Presidents Cups in a row where the losing point was recorded by a Canadian. But Cantlay disposed of Pendrith 3 & 1 and their match was completed prior to Bradley’s.  

Pendrith ended the week with a 2-3 record, identical to Corey Conners — both in their second Presidents Cup — but Conners was a lone bright spot for the Internationals on Sunday. He provided a thorough beating of Tony Finau, winning 5 & 3 after an emphatic birdie on No. 15.  

Mackenzie Hughes rounded out the Canadian contingent this week. He went 1-3, with his lone point coming on the Friday afternoon blitzkrieg by the Internationals in alternate-shot, where he paired with Conners. Hughes was defeated by Max Homa 2 & 1 in the final match of the Presidents Cup.

Although the scoreboard wasn’t in the Canadians favour, Hughes — who said earlier in the week that just being on the team was a dream come true — couldn’t have been happier with everything that went on inside the room.  

“Being with this group was the highlight of my career, and it was amazing to go to battle with these guys,” Hughes said. “We're all competitors and the result stinks, but man, the memories that we made, Friday, the feelings we had on the golf course that day will be something I think about for a long time. When I look forward to Chicago and being on many more teams, I will look at a day like that where I know what these teams are capable of doing. 

“It was magical. I knew it would be, and it lived up to all the hype and more.” 

The inevitable question now is where does the International side go from here? What can happen to actually win one of these things? Vibes and camaraderie — all fine. But what about a trophy tilt sometime soon? 

In a tasty bit of irony, Geoff Ogilvy, who was one of Weir’s assistant captains, was one of the consultants on the golf course where the 2026 Presidents Cup is being played — Medinah Country Club, just outside Chicago — so that’s a start.  

“We may have some of the best inside reads on some of the putts maybe,” Ogilvy said with a smile.  

But the big difference this year in Montreal came with ball-striking. The American side gained more than 15 shots on the Internationals over the course of the four-day event in strokes gained: tee to green. Simply, they played better. But they just are better. And when, for example, the Internationals’ second-ranked player coming into the week, Sungjae Im, can only manage a 1-4 record, they were just outgunned.  

The talent pool, however, is going to just keep growing. This week wasn’t the week for the International side but stay tuned. Maybe a win is — finally — around the corner.

“There's a lot of good, great talent here, so we've got to give this a little bit of time,” assistant captain Ernie Els said. “It was a different animal back in the day, but this thing's coming, I promise you.”