Throughout the pond in Quebec it was a bit extra feisty and positively extra predictable. Jim Furyk’s United States workforce recorded a convincing 18½-11½ victory over the Internationals led by former Masters champion Mike Weir.
The Presidents Cup has loads of critics. It’s seen as ‘Ryder Cup-lite’ with its much less intense four-day format.
Gamers coming from disparate elements of the globe to type America’s opposition has typically felt confected – Koreans and Japanese teaming up with South Africans, Australians and Canadians.
However final week, even in defeat, Weir’s workforce did play with an obvious and commendable collective spirit, particularly after they reversed the opening 5-0 drubbing within the Thursday fourballs with a clear sweep within the Friday foursomes.
There was niggle too, particularly within the form of Tom Kim. The demonstrative 22-year-old Korean made clear his displeasure at being requested to gap a brief putt he felt ought to have been given.
Kim additionally complained that he and associate Kim Si-woo had been sworn at throughout their Saturday conflict with Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele. And the Montreal crowds had been raucous, not fairly a ‘bear pit’ however not far off it.
The younger Korean, although, ultimately backtracked. He went to Schauffele on the finish of the match final Sunday to apologise for his feedback yesterday. “I simply instructed him I did not imply it to go in such a destructive means,” Tom Kim admitted.
“It was simply outdoors the ropes, and I felt like that was a bit of misunderstanding on my half, which I ought to have defined higher,” he admitted.
However the Presidents Cup requires edge and needle whether it is to develop into the spectacle the PGA Tour would need it to be.
Proper now, it’s too one-sided and the gulf is accentuated by the arrival of the breakaway LIV tour, which disadvantaged the house workforce of Australia’s 2022 Open champion Cameron Smith and the extremely rated Chilean Joaquin Niemann.
Sure, the USA had been with out the likes of Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, however American golf nonetheless possesses nice energy in depth. Their whole dozen-strong workforce was ranked inside the highest 25 on the earth.
How might these matches be improved?
There’s outdoors assist for American Solheim Cup captain Stacy Lewis’ rivalry that the Presidents Cup ought to develop into a combined occasion.
The Internationals could be far stronger given the depth of Asian and Australasian expertise on the LPGA. “It’s the right option to mix the 2 excursions,” Lewis mentioned on the Solheim in Virginia earlier this month.
“The worldwide workforce will get higher in a short time. I feel it will be wonderful to have the 2 excursions collectively that means.”
However, even with yet one more one-sided contest within the books – the Internationals have solely received one of many 15 Presidents Cups thus far – it is vitally troublesome to see the PGA Tour altering course.
Such a radical alteration wouldn’t be typical of their often conservative playbook. It can, almost definitely, proceed in the identical vein on the subsequent match at Medinah in 2026.
That Chicago venue famously performed host to the final actually shut Ryder Cup, the place Europe got here again from 10-4 all the way down to sensationally snatch victory by a single level precisely 12 years in the past.
And, let it not be forgotten that the Ryder Cup might do with one other shut contest after largely one-sided house wins in the course of the previous decade.
