Five extremely superficial reasons why the Americans will win the Presidents Cup, and five for the Internationals too
MONTREAL — Together, Golf Digest’s Joel Beall and I have spent the last two days at Royal Montreal with our ears to the ground, keen to pick up any vibes that point us one way or another when it comes to predicting the winner of this week’s Presidents Cup. There is no signal too small, no noise we won’t analyze to death looking for the slightest hint. We’re on the hunt for vibrations, oscillations, the things ordinary men could never notice. After 48 hours, we can safely say that the signals are mixed, and that we’re left with great cosmic and terrestrial arguments for both sides. What follows is the best (extremely superficial) evidence we have for each team’s fortunes as we kick off Thursday here in Montreal.
Five reasons the Internationals will win
1. Jim Furyk may have trouble functioning in French-speaking lands
Furyk’s previous captain experience took place in Paris, when he lost to the Europeans in a rout. So why would you send him to another French-speaking part of the world, Quebec, for his follow-up? The man could become a full-on Francophobe! What’s next, Tunisia? Senegal? The Seychelles?? He has looked ill at ease at times this week, and we can only surmise it’s the PTSD brought on by all that French language.
2. The barista informant
Joel Beall had a conversation with an informant at the coffee station who asked not to be named, and that man or woman was adamant that the spirits were much higher in the International room than the American one. That is rock-solid intelligence. Baristas have their hand in everything; you ignore them at your peril.
3. The Americans are scared of the cold
This team has too many southerners, and to see them bundled up on their practice rounds was to see a group of people who are already defeated by what the Russians call “General Winter.” Granted, it’s fall, and granted, there are only like three “northern” people on the International team, but Keegan Bradley might be the only American who is remotely functional, particularly in the mornings.
4. The secret benefactor
There’s some guy paying the International team $10,000 just to win a five-hole alternate shot match! With that kind of weight being thrown around, what chance do the Americans have? This is like a Canadian PIF…by the end of the week, Scheffler and Schauffele will be playing for the other team.
5. Xander Schauffele is clearly intimidated by Adam Scott’s good looks
Look at this quote: “I absolutely do not feel bad for Adam Scott. I like Adam Scott a lot, but I do not feel bad for him at all. I don’t think any male out there feels bad for Adam Scott. I mean, no.” 1-0 to the Internationals.
Five reasons the Americans will win
1. Canadians can’t win things
I hate to say this, I really do. But it’s been 30 years since a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup, the greatest trophy in the sport they invented. Corey Conners and Taylor Pendrith went a combined 0-8 at the last Presidents Cup. They didn’t even medal in men’s hockey at the last Olympics! It is a low period for the poor Canadians, and the winning vibes are dismal.
2. There won’t be any fans here, and/or the fans will be tame
Remember how I said a lot of fans were wearing the International logo? Well, that was true, but on Wednesday there weren’t many fans, period. There will be more when the competition starts, but as much as the Americans try to convince themselves that they should be prepared for a partisan onslaught, the truth that seems to be emerging is that these won’t be particularly vociferous crowds, and because it’s in America, it could be way closer to 50-50 anyway. A lot is going to depend on if the average Canadian fan at Royal Montreal falls into the “hyper-polite guy” or “hockey hooligan” archetype. If it’s the former, they’re just going to be delighted to see Scheffler in the flesh and won’t give any energy to their team.
3. The International team’s logo is actually kinda bad
This thing is, let’s be honest, mostly UPS,. Still, I swear to you that there were plenty of fans on Royal Montreal wearing hats and vests with the logo. This team might have legitimate fans now! This might be a sports movement on the level of Caitlin Clark! Ernie Els’ vision from 2019 is paying off in a big way, and I saw Scheffler shaking every time he caught a glimpse of that yellow-and-black shield. Still, it’s an overrated logo, and it’s going to fail them in the crunch.
4. Min Woo Lee’s haircut is actually a Samson/Delilah situation
Everyone’s going wild over Lee having “INT” shaved into his head, but the truth is that his hair is his main source of power, and he just cut (some of) it. The dude Delilah’ed himself! You never want to go full self-Delilah. Bad mojo.
5. The Internationals still do not have any Presidents
It’s a presidential election cycle in America, which means that right now we kinda have three presidents. It’s an embarrassment of presidential riches. Canada? Still zero presidents. They had plenty of years to fix it, but here we are in 2024, the Presidents Cup is in their backyard, and there’s still an embarrassing dearth of Canadian presidents. They simply cannot win this thing.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
