MONTREAL – Hoping for a reversal of fortunes, Worldwide captain Mike Weir despatched out the identical eight gamers from the morning for the afternoon foursomes on the Presidents Cup.
It’s the primary time that’s occurred in Presidents Cup historical past.
Which means, even after the Internationals dropped the morning session, the quartet of Jason Day, Min Woo Lee, Ben An and Christiaan Bezuidenhout will sit the whole day for the house group at Royal Montreal. Lee, a captain’s choose for the primary time, hasn’t performed since Thursday afternoon.
An, Day and Bezuidenhout all have been a part of successful alternate-shot groups on Friday that lifted the Internationals to an unbelievable sweep that knotted the rating on the midway level of the competitors.
The U.S. and Worldwide groups will compete in 4 foursomes matches Saturday afternoon.
It’s a daring transfer from Weir, who mentioned he was sticking to his plan set at first of the day even after his group misplaced the better-ball session, 3-1, and now trails by two factors general, 8-6. Foursomes has traditionally been a harder format for the house group; previous to Friday, when the Internationals claimed their first foursomes win since 2005, that they had been outscored by the Individuals by 33 factors in that format since 2007.
“They’re taking part in properly,” Weir mentioned. “We just like the matchups, we just like the pairings, and we’re rolling with it.”
All three Canadians might be despatched out for the afternoon – despite the fact that Taylor Pendrith and Mackenzie Hughes have been, statistically, the 2 worst gamers on the course on Saturday morning. Collectively, Hughes and accomplice Corey Conners mixed to make only a single birdie within the morning fourballs.
As for U.S. captain Jim Furyk, he’ll reheat three of his unique foursomes pairings from Friday, with solely Collin Morikawa (previously with Sahith Theegala) and Sam Burns (didn’t play) teaming up for the primary time in alternate shot. Theegala will sit each periods on Saturday after struggling mightily along with his ball-striking on Friday.
Bradley, in the meantime, was the second-best participant from tee to inexperienced on Saturday morning (throughout what turned out to be a 4-and-3 loss to Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim) however will spend the afternoon on the bench.
At this stage of the competitors, it seems that each captains are leaning into their core gamers.
Furyk will use Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa and Patrick Cantlay – three of the highest 4 gamers on this planet – for all 5 periods. Weir will go the space with Hideki Matsuyama, Sungjae Im and Adam Scott, their prime three computerized qualifiers, in addition to Canadians Conners and Pendrith.
