ÎLE BIZARD, Que. – On Tuesday night in Montreal, in the town square across the road from the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth, both teams from the 2024 Presidents Cup took photos in suits and dresses before a pre-tournament gala. There was one photo, for Canadian golf fans, that will mean a little bit more than just a traditional fancy-dress click.
Captain Mike Weir was there with his wife, Michelle. Alongside him were a trio of players from Ontario who are all part of his International squad – Corey Conners and his wife Malory (eight months pregnant with their second child), Taylor Pendrith and his wife Meg, and Mackenzie Hughes and his wife Jenna.
A group of Ontario-born golfers who grew up playing together, who went to the same university, who have all won on the PGA Tour, who were all in each other’s wedding parties, and who will play in the Presidents Cup together on home soil with their childhood hero – whose 2003 Masters victory inspired them to want to make golf their thing – as the captain.
Amazing, right?
“I don’t think any of us kind of dreamed of being here when we were all at Kent State together or growing up on the Canadian National Team. So, it’s pretty cool that we’re all here,” Conners said.
All three of the Canadians who are part of this, a once-in-a-lifetime experience they admit, had unique ways of joining Weir’s squad.
Conners has been Canada’s most consistent golfer on the PGA Tour over the last 12 months – he didn’t miss one cut all season – and ended up just one spot out of qualifying automatically for the team. He was a lock.
Pendrith, meanwhile, played better than any other Canadian through the summertime and was the lone Canadian to make the PGA Tour’s season finale, the Tour Championship. His summertime stretch – he had five straight top-25 finishes to end his 2024 campaign – made him a sure thing, too. Hughes was a bit of an outside-the-line pick, as he finished 15th in the points standings and had just four top-10s on the season (and none since June). But Weir, a data-driven captain, couldn’t ignore that Hughes ended up fourth in strokes gained: putting and strokes gained: around-the-green in 2024 – and a sizzling short-game could be the big difference maker in a team environment like this.
“My short game has kind of been steadily improving the last four or five years,” Hughes said. “Now I’m at a point where I feel like, yeah, I’m one of the best in the world in that regard, and it gives me a lot of confidence in a spot like this or any week on Tour.”
The Canadian duo of Conners and Pendrith, after going a combined 0-8 at their Presidents Cup debut in 2022, have something to prove, while Hughes has a chance to be an emotional sparkplug to the International side, hunting for their first victory at this event since 1998.
“I think everybody on our team knows we’ve been trending in the right direction. We’ve got a good plan in place. We can definitely do it,” Conners said. “They’ve had our number in the Presidents Cup, but I think everyone on the team, the captains, are instilling a lot of belief in us.”
Trevor Immelman, who was the International team captain in 2022, was quick to heap praise on Conners and Pendrith. He said both of the players have taken their games to “another level” in the last two years, with Conners being one of the most consistent through 2024 and Pendrith breaking through for his first Tour title in the springtime.
“They’re both fantastic players,” Immelman said. “We were hoping to have a bunch of Canadians on this team to play for the Canadian golfing legend in Mike Weir, so very excited to have three of the guys here in their home country.
“That’s pretty special for us on this team to have guys be able to play a Cup in their home country.”
Having the opportunity to play on home soil is a special thing not lost on any of Conners, Hughes, or Pendrith. The build-out on the first tee at Royal Montreal is multi-tiered and towers over the rest of the opening stretch of holes. There are set to be 3,000 people in those stands starting Thursday, weather permitting.
And while Hughes will sit on the opening day, Pendrith will go in the penultimate match alongside South Africa’s Christiaan Bezuidenhout while Conners will play in the finale of Thursday alongside Hideki Matsuyama.
Pendrith and Bezuidenhout are two of the International teams’ strongest putters, while Conners and Matsuyama will put on a ball-striking extravaganza.
Weir did not lead with a Canadian in the opening few pairings, but there’s hope that his countrymen will pop a few points on the board late – and give the Canadian crowd plenty to cheer about.
“I think the crowd’s going to play a huge factor and hopefully we can get some big roars early and just fire the boys up and keep it going,” Pendrith said.
The Ontario boys are a big part of this year’s team. The dream has already come true for them, just to make it here. But with the first day of matches on the horizon, it’s time to take the magical next step and try to win this thing.