6 players under the most pressure at the Presidents Cup
Scottie Scheffler has won *everything* in 2024, but the Presidents Cup presents a different kind of test.
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Scottie Scheffler has all the answers.
That’s the big difference between last year, when he was the best golfer in the world without the resume, and this year, when he was both. Becoming a head-and-shoulders World No. 1, finding glory at the Masters and Olympics, earning $62 million in a calendar year — these are all things that preclude you from facing the nagging existential queries that plague just about every other golfer alive.
And yet, that’s the funny thing about golf: you never have it all figured out. That’s how Scheffler arrives in Montreal facing the most extensive set of questions of any player in this week’s Presidents Cup field, despite being only weeks removed from completing one of the most successful seasons of any golfer ever.
Questions like: can great golfers be great team play competitors? And also: what happened to Scheffler on Team USA in ’22 and ’23?
Match play is a fickle foe, but match play events are satisfying in their clarity. Those who perform well can look to the Presidents or Ryder Cup as validation of a whole year’s worth of work; those who perform poorly can be forced to wrestle with the opposite.
Scheffler will be safely exempt from those extremes this week in Montreal, but he will face questions — and pressure — bigger than just his body of work. And as we look into the players under the most pressure at Royal Montreal, he is where we begin.
6 players under the most Presidents Cup pressure
1. Scottie Scheffler
Scheffler’s ascendant 2024 season reached heights untouched since Tiger Woods. Now he will be relied upon to elevate his teammates, too. That’s a big ask for anyone, but it’s a bigger ask for Scheffler, whose lone resume blemish through four years on the PGA Tour has come in team events.
Ever since his undefeated Ryder Cup introduction in Whistling Straits, Scheffler’s team play results have gone sideways. He is 0-5-3 — winless — in two team play starts since.
There are valid excuses for his poor play: he entered Quail Hollow in ’22 ice-cold after some of the only missed cuts of his professional career, and was far from the lone U.S. offender in the mollywhopping in Rome.
But those excuses are gone now, and the truth is simple: If the U.S. is to become a perennial powerhouse in these events, they need Scheffler as the anchor of the team, not an anchor. We’ll find out this week if he’s up to it.
2. The International Team
There are a few offensively overwrought Presidents Cup storylines, but none bigger than the suggestion the Internationals need a win to bring some legitimacy to the event. There are far bigger issues plaguing the legitimacy of the Presidents Cup than its lopsided win-loss totals, like, for example, the issue of much of the best talent on the International side playing for a rival professional tour. An International win won’t change these facts any more than a heaping serving of poutine will change my BMI — temporarily.
While I wouldn’t expect the Internationals to show up to the party with washboard abs, I do expect them to show us they’ve been eating their greens. The last two iterations of the event — Australia in ’19 and North Carolina in ’22 — have brought out surprisingly competitive and cohesive International sides, and I’d argue the pressure is on captain Mike Weir to answer the bell again.
Vegas has the home team as +260 underdogs on Tuesday morning, and a win might be out of reach. But a pesky International side and an electrified Canadian crowd should be reasonable expectations.
3. Patrick Cantlay
Good news for those hoping to avoid a second-straight year of team golf apparel storylines: Patrick Cantlay has showed up to this year’s Presidents Cup wearing a hat.
While a discussion on the merits of pay-for-play might have to wait for next year, Cantlay enters this week as one of the most intriguing U.S. storylines.
Patty Ice followed up the most explosive moment of his professional career last fall in Rome with one of his more disappointing seasons between the ropes (no wins, four top-10s). It’s easy to forget now, but Cantlay was far and away the most important player on the U.S. side last fall. A repeat performance would go a long way toward resetting expectations in ’25.
4. Tom Kim
It was a mostly painful 2024 season for Tom Kim. The unabashed star of the last Presidents Cup suffered a few crushing defeats — in a playoff at the Travelers, off the podium at the Olympics — and, for the first time in his professional career, no PGA Tour victories.
We know better than to refer to whole seasons purely as career steps forward or back, but Kim would do well for himself to remind the golf world why he was such an ascendant star after the last Presidents Cup — and why, at just 22 years old, he still might be.
5. Wyndham Clark
The 2024 season proved a strange one for Wyndham Clark, the ’23 U.S. Open champ. Statistically, it was one of the best seasons of his career, with a win at Pebble Beach in Feburary followed by a lip-out near-miss at the Players in March, and a host of other top-10s throughout the PGA Tour season. But his game seemed to fade as the season wore on, and his struggles multiplied in the majors. He admitted recently that it took him a while to return to tournament form at the Ryder Cup last year, but you can bet Wyndham is chomping at the bit to wash the taste of ’24 in Montreal.
6. Min Woo Lee
Of all the team play first-timers, “The Chef” is the one with the biggest chance to out himself as a bonafide star in Montreal. Lee, the brother of U.S. Women’s Open champ Minjee, has flashed some serious talent since arriving on the PGA Tour last spring. Perhaps just as importantly, he’s displayed a showman’s sense of the dramatic on a team that has traditionally rallied around its young stars.
If the Internationals do make a run in Montreal, expect Min Woo to be in the center of the mix. He usually is.
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