MONTREAL — The orchestra at the first tee box at the Presidents Cup was ready to make sweet music, but it just needed a conductor.
Thankfully, the maestro arrived early, sporting a trim black sweatshirt and a bucket hat over his eyes.
“I-N-T!” Tom Kim screamed, pointing toward the fans and scurrying around like a pill bug.
“I-N-T!!!” they screamed back, more vigorously with every round of chants.
It would be disingenuous to say that Kim single-handedly changed the trajectory of the Presidents Cup on Friday afternoon. After all, of the 12 players on the International team, Kim was one of the four who didn’t hit golf a shot in Friday’s stunning 5-0 reverse sweep to even the score at 5. But to say Kim didn’t compete on Friday would also be untruthful.
The nature of golf’s team play events is that some players are forced to sit out. As such, it is not unusual for those who are not playing to take in the action from up close. But it is unusual to take in the action in the way that Kim did on Friday, the same day the Internationals breathed new life into the Presidents Cup.
Kim, from the bench, was at the center of a raucous home environment for the INTs on Friday. And it started on the first tee.
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After the Internationals fell in an early 5-0 hole on Thursday, team captain Mike Weir sat Kim for Friday’s alternate-shot matches, a decision that almost immediately seemed like a mistake. Kim had been the lifeblood of an otherwise lifeless International side in the 5-0 Thursday drumming, landing a few highlight moments against World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler before Scheffler turned into the golf Terminator and won the match. He was one of the few players who seemed to elicit excitement of any kind from the home crowd, and the Internationals needed every cheer they could get.
Then the sun arrived on Friday morning, and the fans came with it. They rolled into the first tee box at Royal Montreal, which was rocking at a noticeably higher decibel than it had been on Thursday (at least in part thanks to a revamped DJ playlist). And as soon as they arrived, they were greeted by the green face (and voice) of the International Side, Tom Kim.
“When I knew I was going to sit out, I told myself, What can I do for my teammates to go out tomorrow and feel the energy? Because our crowd wasn’t going,” Kim said. “I had one goal today, and that was to get there before everyone got to the first tee and get the crowd going for my guys.”
Kim brought the energy, waving and screaming in the direction of the international faithful, who responded with their own waves and screams. Before long, the last of the day’s five foursomes had left the teeing area, and the difference was palpable.
“I hit the first tee shot yesterday in our group, and I hit the first tee shot today,” said Tony Finau, who was dispatched 6 and 5 by the Canadian pairing of Corey Conners and Mackenzie Hughes. “It was night-and-day difference, I think just the noise and the energy.”
Kim carried the energy out onto the course as the yellow flags kept piling up on the scoreboard, egging on the crowd with each passing birdie putt. He was there on the 12th, when Hideki Matsuyama and Sungjae Im closed out an emphatic 7-and-6 dismantling of Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, and there on the 13th, too, as Conners and Hughes poured in one final birdie to send the crowd ballistic.
“LET’S GO!” Kim screamed several times, to no one in particular.
“I just wish they could bring it on the weekend as well because we’re going to need it,” Kim said, a touch ruefully, in Friday’s post-round presser. That he didn’t compete in the session and was nonetheless invited to participate in the press conference, which is typically only reserved for leaders and top performers, spoke volumes.
But then again, so did his screams, which were audible even through the chaos on Saturday afternoon, leaving him out of breath more than once.
“I think I’m starting to lose my voice,” he said Friday evening with a grin.
If KIm’s voice is fully gone come Saturday morning, we know the moment that delivered the final blow. It came just before sunset on Friday, as Si Woo Kim stared down a par putt in the fifth and final match of the day to pick off Scheffler and Henley. As his putt hit the bottom of the hole, Si Woo reached out his hand and beckoned toward the International side, which rushed in his direction.
It was no surprise to see Kim was the first player to reach him. And even less of a surprise to see what happened after, as pandemonium enveloped the thousands assembled near the 18th, who suddenly believed — as Kim had that morning — that the Internationals really were in it.
“I-N-T!” Kim screamed, waving his hands like a virtuoso.
“I-N-T!!!” the crowd screamed back.
Right on cue.