For much of Saturday at Medinah, the scoreboards looked like the comeback Brandt Snedeker needed.
By the end of the longest day of this Presidents Cup, the U.S. had won it, too.
That is where the math gets uncomfortable.
The Americans took 4.5 of eight available points across Saturday’s two sessions, trimming a four-point deficit by one. Geoff Ogilvy’s International Team will carry a 10.5-7.5 advantage into Sunday’s 12 singles matches after finding ways to scrape points out of matches that spent significant stretches colored red. The U.S. won morning four-ball 2.5-1.5 and split afternoon foursomes 2-2.
A 4.5-3.5 Saturday was unquestionably better for the Americans.
From four points behind, it also was not the kind of day that dramatically changed their predicament.
The U.S. Had the Morning It Needed, Almost
Chris Gotterup and Cameron Young supplied the first real jolt.
Playing together for the first time in the Presidents Cup, the Americans won the first four holes against Nick Taylor and Corey Conners and eventually closed out a 2-and-1 victory. Gotterup earned his first Presidents Cup win, while Young finally had a match in which the scoreboard tilted their direction early instead of forcing another chase.
Gotterup described spending much of the day watching putts slide past before enough began falling at exactly the right time. Young had already supplied an eagle at the fourth to help send the pair 4-up. Afterward, Young sounded almost relieved by the feeling of finally playing from in front.
Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns added another American point with a 2-and-1 win over Hideki Matsuyama and Ryo Hisatsune. Scheffler holed an important putt at the 15th before Burns delivered iron shots down the closing stretch. Their four-ball partnership improved to 2-0-1 in Presidents Cup play.
Justin Thomas and Jackson Koivun added another half point against Min Woo Lee and Sungjae Im. Thomas remained undefeated in Presidents Cup four-ball at 7-0-1, although he was hardly celebrating afterward. He told Koivun he felt he had let both his partner and the team down after the Americans allowed two holes to get away late.
Then there were Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim.
While red spread across the board, the International pairing denied the U.S. the kind of morning score that could have changed the feel of the entire match. Their 2-and-1 victory over Collin Morikawa and Wyndham Clark made them 3-0 together through the first three sessions.
Their partnership was especially revealing on the par-3 16th. Tom Kim played first and put a ball safely in play, which gave Si Woo Kim the freedom to take a more aggressive line. Tom later described those little decisions as part of what makes the pairing work.
That is good four-ball golf. One ball changes what the other player is allowed to attempt.
The result left the International advantage at 8.5-5.5 instead of something considerably tighter.
Gotterup and Young Changed the Foursomes Conversation
Friday had made alternate shot the ugliest part of the American scorecard.
The International Team had taken all five foursomes matches, turning a 3-2 U.S. advantage after Thursday into a 7-3 International lead.
So Saturday afternoon brought more than four additional points. It offered the first indication of whether Friday was going to become a defining weakness for this U.S. team or simply one disastrous session.
Snedeker made several changes. Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele went back out against Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim. Russell Henley and Jacob Bridgeman drew Conners and Taylor. Gotterup and Young stayed together against Adam Scott and Sungjae Im, while Burns teamed with Wyndham Clark against Ryan Fox and Min Woo Lee. Scheffler sat for the first time this week.
Gotterup and Young carried their morning straight through lunch.
Their afternoon victory produced the first U.S. foursomes point of the week and completed a two-win Saturday for a partnership that did not exist before the morning session. Young said keeping the same partner made the quick transition between formats easier. Gotterup put it more colorfully.
“If I get to hit his shots all the time, I do pretty good at golf.”
There was some truth beneath the joke. Foursomes asks a player to live with whatever his partner leaves him. Gotterup and Young looked comfortable accepting that bargain almost immediately.
Cantlay and Schauffele supplied another American point against the previously unbeaten Kims. Snedeker had sent the veteran pairing out first, and Cantlay said the assignment was straightforward: put a point on the board. They did.
Xander Schauffele also supplied perhaps the best description of the American team’s Saturday.
“The youngsters have been carrying us,” he said.
Gotterup and Young had done exactly that.
Two International Comebacks Changed the Shape of Saturday
This is where Saturday stopped becoming the overwhelming American response the scoreboards had suggested it might be.
Conners and Taylor were 3-down through 10 holes against Henley and Bridgeman. They still won the point.
Conners described the comeback without trying to make it sound complicated. They kept applying pressure and refused to let the deficit end the match before the scorecard did. Taylor called the pair “relentless,” a word that fit what the Canadians had done over consecutive days at Medinah.
Fox and Lee performed their own recovery against Burns and Clark. The International pair improved to 2-0 in foursomes after turning around another match that had been leaning toward the Americans. Fox spoke afterward about the familiarity that comes from having played and traveled with Lee for years. Lee focused on something even simpler: when his golf was poor early, Fox kept him in the match.
Those were the two points that changed the meaning of the afternoon.
The U.S. had finally solved some of its foursomes trouble. Cantlay and Schauffele won. Gotterup and Young won again. Yet the session finished 2-2.
Ogilvy understood exactly what his team had survived.
The International captain said his players had seen red across the board and trailed in every match during stretches of both Saturday sessions. He watched the Americans play what he called “really high-level foursomes” in the afternoon, yet his team still escaped with half of the available points.
“For the boys to somehow come back and pinch two points out of that and split the session was amazing,” Ogilvy said.
That may be the most important part of Saturday.
The International Team did not have to win the day. It entered with four points in hand. Its job was to avoid allowing an American wave to erase them.
It lost Saturday by one.
Scheffler Rested, and the U.S. Still Found Two Points
Sitting Scheffler after he and Burns had won the morning was going to attract attention regardless of what happened.
Scheffler accepted the decision publicly, saying he had played plenty of golf and would spend the afternoon supporting his teammates before getting ready for singles.
Snedeker later defended the choice as part of a broader team approach.
“Scottie Scheffler is not going to go out there and win us 15 points,” the U.S. captain said. He wanted Scheffler rested and challenged the other Americans to deliver without relying on the world’s top-ranked player to carry the entire response.
They did enough to split the session.
They did not do enough to materially erase the International advantage.
That distinction will follow both teams into Sunday.
Twelve Singles Matches, Three Points Between Them
The Presidents Cup is down to its simplest format now.
No partnerships. No alternate-shot order. No best-ball strategy. Twelve individual matches worth one point each.
The International Team begins Sunday at 10.5 points, five shy of the 15.5 required to win outright. The U.S. needs eight of Sunday’s 12 points to reach 15.5. If the competition finishes 15-15, the teams share the Presidents Cup under the current format.
Saturday showed the Americans can create enough red to make this uncomfortable.
It also showed why they remain behind.
Again and again, International pairings stayed in matches long enough to find something late. Conners and Taylor turned 3-down into a point. Fox and Lee reversed another match. Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim kept the morning from becoming a rout.
The U.S. needed a huge Saturday.
It got a good one.
The difference is still three.
PGA of America Golf Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer who serves as Athlon Sports Senior Golf Writer. Read his recent “The Starter” on RG.org, where he is their Lead Golf Writer. To stay updated on all of his latest work, sign up for his newsletter or visit his MuckRack Profile.
