Weekend Wrap Deja Vu Edition

 As always, the alternate reality yields the more satisfyingly result:

Sunday At The (Mixed) Presidents Cup

International team rallies to end U.S.A.'s hold on the Cup.

Last hole. Last match.

“Just the way we scripted it,” said Commissioner Jay Monahan, smile emblazoned on his face after a week that may end up as career-defining after switching the Presidents Cup to a mixed-team

event. Following two decades of minimal worldwide interest, International team futility, and an overall sense the event is a Ryder Cup knock-off, The Presidents Cup now stands alone in the team event world.

Even when lacking Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka and several notable International players who lost eligibility after taking Saudi Arabia’s millions, the Cup’s combination of men and women provided high-quality golf, (generally) wise decision-making between co-Captains, a dreamy level of tension, plenty of passionate play, a traditional uniform controversy, and most revealing of all, impeccable sportsmanship increasingly rare in a world of excessive celebrations.

As with any team match, the fans and dignitaries who flew from around the world were not deprived of a few ego-driven tussles or the enjoyable second-guessing that comes when successful individuals are forced into a team environment. Still, count on the inevitable post-match airing of grievances and revelations that will be too good not to share. But for now, the focus should be on the unprecedented intrigue of seeing men and women compete on the same global stage.

Here are your Sunday Singles results:

Although, given how Hideki played back here on Planet Earth, that win over the X-man seems as unlikely as Tom Kim making up offenses... what?

Shockingly, Geoff uses his typical "Quotable" section to settle scores.  Anyone remember that UseGolfFactsNow hashtag?

Jim Furyk on whether an analytics divide with Stacy Lewis might have cost the Americans. “Please. First and foremost, credit the Internationals for an amazing comeback. As for AI, algorithms, analytics, whichever one it is, I want you to listen to me carefully: they’re all bull*&%$. I can say this now that I’m done as a Captain. Now I know how the stats geeks think their formulas are gospel. They aren’t. It’s golf with golfers, not robots. These things still come down to finding compatible personalities for pairings, good ball striking, making some big putts, a little luck, and not having Patrick Reed or his wife around your team room.”

Personally, I miss Justine, though your mileage may vary...

Geoff ran with the joke all week and certainly highlighted what the event could be, not that it's so terribly awful in it's actual manifestation.  It's just not competitive, which is no small thing.

Did someone say non-competitive?

U.S. continues Presidents Cup dominance, wins for 10th straight time

Ten straight is all the more overwhelming when you remember that it included five away games, not that this away game was very away.  Paul McGinley spent his week in the Golf Channel studio at Royal Montreal explaining Ryder vs. Prez Cup performance as a home game vs. road game bifurcation, forgetting that it's a distinction without a difference.

And while the INT's have their new shield around which to rally, they seem to inevitably lose the close matches and therefore the close cups (can you say Korea and Royal Melbourne), so good luck fixing that.

Shall we riff on the Tour Confidential panel?

The 15th Presidents Cup concluded on Sunday in Montreal just like many of the previous editions: with the Americans winning yet again. This time it was 18.5-11.5 to give the U.S. its 10th straight win over the Internationals. What was the difference?

Jack Hirsh: Let’s not fool ourselves, this was a lopsided fight. The Americans had five players in

the top-10 of the Official World Golf Ranking while the Internationals had just Hideki Matsuyama. It goes the other way too as Max Homa was the worst ranked American at 25th, while Mackenzie Hughes is 62nd. Plus the International team is hurt a lot harder by LIV defectors without Cam Smith, Joaco Niemann and Co., while the Americans are just deeper and can replace Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau with other top-25 players. This is all to say the talent disparity may just be insurmountable over the course of 30 matches.

Sean Zak: The difference, if there was one, was that it felt contentious, which I think is important. Of course the Americans want to win, but it’s good for the event if they want to beat this International team. It’s good that Wyndham Clark and Ben An became soft-enemies. It’s good that Si Woo Kim taunted the Americans and that Tom Kim was running his mouth a bit. Creating a bit of a rivalry, even if the result is the same, makes for some staying power for this event.

Zephyr Melton: The Americans were just the deeper and more talented team. They didn’t do anything special or need any heroics. To use a football cliche, they just went out there and ran their stuff. When you have such a talent advantage, that’s all you need to do to come out victorious.

Not sure that Sean Zak actually understood that he was being asked for the difference between the two teams.  Zephyr's answer is quite reasonable (though he ignores the overwhelming U.S. advantage on the back nine/finishing holes), at least until one realizes that on could say the exact same thing about a Ryder Cup.  Yet those, at least the road games, play out a little differently...

I do think the matches, at least in the team portion, were subjectively closer than in prior iterations, but maybe that's just perception.  But the INT's were pretty horrible at closing out those matches, so that's a decidedly mixed blessing.

Who is taking home MVP honors for each side, and whose performance was most disappointing?

Hirsh: For the American side, it’s hard to argue against either Patrick Cantlay or Xander Schauffele, especially when they played together twice. I’ll give the nod to Schauffele because

his first point in the opening singles match was exactly by the book. For most disappointing, despite a 3-2-0 record, I’ll go with Scottie Scheffler. He just didn’t seem like the guy who won seven times this week and I had higher expectations for him, especially losing a 1 Up lead on the back nine.

For the Internationals, as much as I think Si Woo Kim really rose to the occasion this week, it was Tom Kim’s energy that brought the Internationals back in it Friday despite not even playing. He had the moxie all day Saturday and Sunday, too, even starting a few controversies! Most disappointing was Min Woo Lee for the simple reason of him playing just twice all week.

Zak: Xander Schauffele was the top man for the red, white and blue. Furyk would have never considered sitting him, and could pair him with anyone. He pulled Tony Finau — who was one of the worst performers of the week, possibly most disappointing! — along for a couple wins and then waxed Jason Day in the opening Singles match.

As for the INTs, it was Si Woo Kim. Best performer analytically, one of the best putters all week, the pot-stirring, etc. He showed out just like he did at Quail Hollow. I look forward to watching him shush the crowd in Chicago in two years.

Melton: I’ll give some love to Team USA’s other top-scorer in Collin Morikawa who joined X and Cantlay with four points. He’s now 10-5-1 in team events for the Americans. Brian Harman was an obvious disappointment for the Americans as he was the lone man without a point.

For the Internationals, Hideki Matsuyama was impressive if only for taking down Scottie Scheffler in Sunday singles. As for biggest disappointment, Sungjae Im only scoring one point in five matches is a tough look.

Mike Weir is going to take some deserved heat, which we'll get to in a second, but his Saturday pairings were about as bizarre as we've seen.  I'll just note that in a pre-event presser Weir was asked to predict a breakout player from his roster, and he went with the talented Min Woo Lee.  After that answer, it's more than a little strange to see the guy sit all day Saturday....  You can't break out from the bench.

Any second-guessing for captains Furyk or Weir? What letter grade would you assign them for their performances this week and why?

Hirsh: I’ll start with the low hanging fruit of Weir sending out the exact same players Saturday afternoon as he did Saturday morning, something no Presidents Cup captain had ever done. It totally backfired when, toward the end of the 36-hole day, the Internationals let a couple close matches go the other way, clearly feeling the fatigue. He gets a D- from me.

Furyk gets a solid B+ as he successfully rode his hot players, allowing them to carry struggling players like Tony Finau and hide others like Brian Harman and Max Homa.

Zak: I like to call these events the Hindsight Olympics because you can always disagree with a move that ultimately ended in a loss. But that 36-hole Saturday call by Weir is as puzzling as they come. If it worked, we would have loved it. But it didn’t, so it’s a bit stunning. C-minus for Weir and a B-plus for Furyk.

Melton: SZ nailed it. Weir’s decision-making was strange at the time, and looks even worse after the fact. I’ll give Furyk a passing grade, but he didn’t need to push many buttons to come away with a victory.

Guys are using words like "unprecedented" to describe those afternoon foursome pairings, but I can't get past the insanity of it all, not least because he threw back out teams that played dreadfully in the morning:

“They’re playing well,” Weir said. “We like the matchups, we like the pairings, and we’re rolling with it.”

All three Canadians will be sent out for the afternoon – even though Taylor Pendrith and Mackenzie Hughes were, statistically, the two worst players on the course on Saturday morning. Together, Hughes and partner Corey Conners combined to make just a single birdie in the morning fourballs.

They lost the session 3-1, and a couple of those guys looked like your humble blogger over three-footers, so it's a little hard to understand what he thought he was accomplishing (except, perhaps to have the three Canucks out there).   

As for Alas, Poor Furyk, well he got quite the mulligan, didn't he?  I think his pairings were just as bizarre as in Paris, for example playing Theegala in foursomes but not fourball), but the level of competition is quite obviously lower.

But I'm old enough to remember that Task Force that was goin g to save us, rationalizing the system to peak optimization, or some such mumbo jumbo.  There was always a shortage of meat on the bone when it came to specifics about said optimization, but see what you think of this answer to an obvious question:

Speaking on course immediately after the win, an emotional Furyk was asked what he did

differently this time compared to his Ryder Cup experience in 2018.

And as expected, there was some method behind his way of leading the team.

“I said it earlier in the press room; I don’t know if I can explain it, but I was ahead of schedule where I was in Paris. I think I was always a half a day ahead on my pairings on being prepared for the next step. What happens at the end of matches, last night we finish up in the dark, everyone is excited, now you’ve got 45 minutes to put a singles match out,” Furyk said.

“We were already working on that well, well ahead of time, so that 45 minutes, as fast as it went, I felt very prepared going into every match.

“I think most of what I took away from ’18 is just being a little bit more prepared, being a half a day, a half a step ahead of where I was in ’18, and it made me feel more comfortable about the groupings we were putting out.”

Apparently, the purpose of that Ryder Cup Task Force is to ensure that we have battle-hardened captains for the Prez Cup.  I'm sure glad we have that all figured out...

Keegan Bradley earned the deciding point to clinch the win for the Americans, beating Si Woo Kim 1 up. This was his first team event (dating back to the 2014 Ryder Cup) in a decade, and his next one is even bigger yet when he captains the U.S. Ryder Cup team at Bethpage Black in 2025. How important do you think his experience this past week in Montreal will be to his captaincy a year from now: a little, a lot, or somewhat in-between?

Hirsh: It was almost poetic for Keegan to get the winning point when at the 2014 Ryder Cup, he lost the clinching point. It’s been a whirlwind of a year for him after he was left off the Ryder Cup team last year and then gets named captain for the next one. I think, if nothing else, his confidence may be at an all-time high, at least at the level when he won the PGA back in 2011. Going 2-1-0 this week makes me wonder what his odds really are of being a playing-captain at Bethpage.

Zak: It’ll definitely be important for his captaincy, but I’m not convinced it’ll mean great things. I think Keegan starring a bit is only going to embolden the calls for him to be a playing-captain next fall, which is exactly what Team Europe wants. It’s a truly chaotic event and that’ll only create more chaos in the run-up. Luke Donald had to be grinning all week seeing this result manifest.

Melton: It was certainly a neat scene seeing Keegan clinch for the Americans, but I’m not sure this week’s experience will mean much for Bethpage. The Ryder Cup is a whole different ball game.

An all-time high you say?  Did you not notice that, prior to closing it out on No. 18, he missed short putts to close it out on Nos. 16 and 17, with strokes that certainly didn't look ready for the Ryder Cup.  I certainly hope that puts to bed any thought of him being a playing captain, which is the only thing crazier than naming him captain in the first place.   Not that it matters, I don't expect Bethpage to be as close as Montreal.

The inevitable question:

The U.S. has now won 13 of the 15 Presidents Cups, and the Internationals haven’t won in over two decades. Does the Presidents Cup need fixing? And if so, how would you change it?

Hirsh: It’s tough to say “no” to that question, but it would also stink if there was no U.S. vs. The World match anymore. I think it’s clear this event needs to move to a co-ed model. There shouldn’t be any shame in it given how much the Ryder Cup was elevated by opening up to continental Europe.

Zak: It would be fantastic to see the Presidents Cup move to a co-ed model. It makes tons of sense. But the PGA Tour doesn’t always move in the direction of obvious, common sense. They’re the owners of this entity, so it would require perhaps the most progressive move the Tour has made in decades. I don’t see it happening. That said, ehhh, I think the event is mostly fine. The Internationals will win soon.

Melton: It definitely needs changing. It’s no fun watching a sporting event where the outcome is all but certain before it even begins. The co-ed idea is a popular one, but it feels like wishful thinking to hope for it to actually happen. Perhaps the Internationals should start the week with a three-point headstart? It wouldn’t be the first time the PGA Tour staged a handicapped event.

I would feel better if I actually thought Zephyr was kidding....  Yanno, Oscar Wilde famously said that irony is wasted on the stupid, so sorry, Zephyr, but you think the way to buttress a non-competitive event is to announce that it's not competitive on the front end?

The truly ironic thing is that the Prez Cup is almost exactly what the Ryder Cup was for fifty years, with one major difference.  That being there was no modern Ryder Cup to create such a tough comparison....  

The coed format is there for the plucking, but the writers don't seem interested in (or perhaps don't have the bandwidth in the TC format) to explore the forces affecting such a decision.  Jay's guys aren't eager to share the stage, but the bigger issue in the current moment might be the vulture capital funding the Tour has taken to fund Patrick's cash flow needs.  Does sharing this event with the LPGA enhance it's value?  Maybe, but it's a leap of faith, especially if one has ever looked at LPGA TV ratings.

Lastly:

Is there something the Presidents Cup does well that the Ryder Cup doesn’t (or vice versa) that players, captains or organizers could learn from?

Hirsh: Until this week, it seemed there was no controversy, no bad blood between the U.S. and International teams. Remember Tom Kim partying with the U.S. team two years ago at Quail Hollow? I don’t think that will happen again this year. We were all glued to the Ryder Cup last year because of “Hat Gate,” and then this year, people became more intrigued when you raise questions of sportsmanship. So, for organizers, I’m not sure there’s much to do, as it really comes down to players going at each other and really caring about winning at all costs.

Zak: I’m not sure Royal Montreal is the best example of this, but the Presidents Cup has at least visited/or planned to visit a few more of the best courses. European Ryder Cups are more focused on parking, space, and global cities than invigorating golf courses. It’s not a big deal, but it is some deal that the Prez Cup has been to Royal Melbourne multiple times and will visit Kingston Heath and Medinah for its next two iterations.

Those who know me, will instinctively understand that Sean's last sentence will have my blood boiling... Fortunately, before I could let the snark fly,  one of his fellow writers called him an ignorant slut:

Melton: Not sure Medinah is quite in the same tier as Royal Melbourne and Kingston Heath, but I understand (and agree with) your point, Sean.

Oh, I think you're pretty sure, you just couldn't humiliate your fellow writer publicly.   Obviously Sean Zak has heard of Medinah, so that must mean it's great, otherwise why would they go back there?  Which is a really good question....  Especially given it's primacy in U.S. Ryder Cup PTSD.

I'll wrap with a Joel Beall piece that attempts to deal with the existential struggle of this event.  he does a decent job, despite this 'graph that lands with a dull thud:

To them, the Presidents Cup is not broken, because that implies it once worked. Yes, it makes the PGA Tour a ton of money, but the past three years of strife in professional golf has underlined that success is not measured by dollar signs. In sports, in events that matter, the end is never guaranteed. With one lone International win over 30 years, the Presidents Cup is as much a competition as grass against a lawnmower.

Joel, have you and I been watching the same game the last three years?  Because the powers that be, those same powers that control this event, have told us that the game cannot survive unless Patrick gets paid.  That seems to be the only metric that matters, so if they don't care about their own events, why should I?

Though Joel has an even more out-of-the-box suggestion than the Co-ed format:

It’s not just a lack of competition inside the ropes. A true rivalry requires sports animus towards the opposition. There is no real hostility between the Americans or Internationals. Even Tom Kim’s antics—from chirping at Scottie Scheffler on Thursday to crying about his treatment from U.S. players after some bush-league celebrations of his own on Saturday—were viewed as a little brother attempting to get under a big brother’s skin. Anyone with a little brother knows they don’t know what they don’t know. Go home school boy, the Americans seemed to sneer, you don’t belong here.

These detractors do have to acknowledge the fire of the week. Still, they could preface it by noting the excitement is not inherent to the United States versus the world but because of the vagaries of match play. And while the Presidents Cup was better than it usually is, it’s still nowhere in the ballpark of the Ryder Cup—in terms of relevance or care or standing—which is what this event ultimately aspires to be. It’s worth wondering if this is the most actualized version of this event, what is it trying to accomplish? Whether that’s changing formats to a mixed-gender event, or, sacreligious as it might sound, making the Ryder Cup annual, these are debates worth discussing. Considering this is a time of upheaval in the sport, now is the time for experimentation.

The actual solution is perhaps so simple as to be missed by all.  Since it took fifty years for the bad blood to appear in the Ryder Cup, how about we adjust our expectations accordingly and enjoy the simple pleasures of four days of team match play?  There was some great stuff, especially Thursday and Friday, and there's nothing actually wrong with an exhibition....  

The bigger issue is that, whatever its limitations, this is the last golf of any significance until April.  That has me quite despondent, so I'll catch you later in the week, though I'm unclear what there might be to discuss.  

Have a great week.