How did the Presidents Cup get flipped? Putters

Perhaps you thought the Presidents Cup was over. You’d be forgiven for that thought, considering the overwhelming favorite Team USA jumped out to a 5-0 lead after Day 1. But what if the International side started making putts? What if the International side made every putt? 

That’s kinda what happened Friday at Royal Montreal.

It started with Hideki Matsuyama and Sungjae Im, who made a preposterous seven straight birdies in the alternate shot session, sprinting to a 7 and 6 win over Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele. Matsuyama was the best putter of the entire session, and it wasn’t particularly close. 

The next match featured Adam Scott and Taylor Pendrith, two players who have struggled with the putter at points in their career. Not Friday, where Scott was the third-best putter of the session, thanks in part to a 40-footer he made for birdie on the 5th hole to take a 2 up lead. They’d close out Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala 5 and 4. 

Mackenzie Hughes was chosen as a captain’s pick by fellow Canadian Mike Weir for this very reason: his putting. But he was not sent out in Thursday’s opening session. Instead, Weir held Hughes — and his 5th-best putter, Tour-wide this season — out until Friday’s foursomes. The idea of pairing Hughes with a fellow Canadian in Corey Conners — one of his best friends and former college teammate — who struggles a bit with his own flat-stick, made great sense. Only it was Conners holing everything, finishing the session as the fourth-best putter. The former Kent State teammates beat Wyndham Clark and Tony Finau 6 and 4 when Hughes poured in a 5-footer for the win. 

It appeared that a day full of International magic might end with a halved match between Si Woo Kim and Ben An against Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley. But Kim had quietly played as well as any golfer all day, going toe-to-toe against the best golfer in the world in Scheffler. He stood over a 15-footer for par on the 18th hole, played his stroke well out to the left, and dropped his putter handle into the ground as the ball dove into the center of the cup for a 1 up win.

It’s amazing what a hot putter can do in match play, particularly alternate-shot play, when a pair of golfers manage to mesh their games as one. The Internationals seemed to make that happen overnight, flipping their 5-point deficit by gaining 16 strokes on the Americans on the greens alone Friday. 

At the end of a Cup-defining comeback session — which they won 5-0 — the Internationals had started 10 players and finished with the eight best putters. The Americans finished the session with eight of the nine worst putters. Ironically, the best putter entering the week for the Internationals, Hughes, finished as the second-worst putter from that team Friday. That’s how you turn the tide. Nearly every player on your squad out-performs the best putter on your team. 

It’s officially game on in Montreal.