Presidents Cup 2024: Americans Schauffele and Cantlay say ‘good night’ to rivals with epic win in the near darkness

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MONTREAL — The lights on the team golf carts were now truly illuminating the fairway as they motored up the 18th fairway at Royal Montreal, though they’d been visible for at least three holes. The once-bright pink clouds of sunset were now fading to pale pastels. It was the time of night good for walking the dog in the neighborhood, not playing golf as if your life depended on it.

But in the near darkness, no one wanted this particular match to end. It is not hyperbole to call it epic, maybe the single-greatest clash of twosomes in the 15 stagings of the Presidents Cup—Americans Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay beating South Koreans Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim, 1 up in alternate-shot foursomes. Eleven birdies were recorded, the combatants fighting for 18 holes and the score changing a remarkable 10 times. The Internationals never led but came back from a trio of one-hole deficits on the back nine and tied it with an incredible flop shot from an impossible lie that Si Woo Kim holed for a birdie at the par-4 16th.

All tied and racing to finish in the gloaming 15 minutes after sunset because of early morning fog delay, the players strode up the 18th with a good 200 people of their entourages in tow. Any faint cheers for the U.S. were drowned out by chants of “I-N-T!” and K-I-M!” But the Kims were in a bad spot, with Si Woo leaving Tom with a fairway bunker shot. Then yet again, the 22-year-old sparkplug of the Internationals produced, hitting a shot everyone squinted to follow that ended up 16 feet from the flag. Providing an answer from the fairway, Schauffele rifled an approach that stopped three feet farther away.

From that spot, it would be Cantlay, who had heard constant biting comments over this 12-hour workday about this notoriously deliberate play, who silenced the partisan gallery when his 19-foot birdie roll found the heart of the cup. Now it was the American players and wives whose cheers rang out, though they had to wait until Si Woo’s missed putt to storm the green and celebrate by the light of the nearby scoreboards.

“I know I can speak for P.C. here,” Schauffele said later. “We wanted to win that match pretty bad. Man, did it feel good when P.C. made that putt there in the dark.”

The 1-up victory capped a strong day for the Americans, who fended off numerous International parries to take a comfortable 11-7 lead heading into Sunday’s 12 singles matches. Entering the day tied at 5-5, the U.S. got three points in the morning fourball and another three in the alternate shot.

The final U.S. point fittingly came down to Schauffele and Cantlay, the close friends from California and now neighbors in Florida who were left smarting on Friday night after suffering a 7-and-6 rout at the hands of Hideki Matsuyama and Sungjae Im. “I woke up at 3:00 a.m. this morning, a little before my alarm,” Cantlay said. “You just have to keep telling yourself to refocus and refocus. You know it’s going to be a long day going into this morning. I knew it would be. So having Xander by my side in the afternoon to pick me up when I needed it, that’s all I can ask for.”

They responded by earning two points each on Saturday, Schauffele combining with Tony Finau in the morning to beat Canadian darlings Corey Conners and Mackenzie Hughes 3 and 2, while Cantlay and Sam Burns got revenge with a victory over Matsuyama-Im, 2 and 1.

Against the Kims in the afternoon, the Americans faced the Internationals’ most dynamic pair, with Tom Kim seemingly serving the triple role of mascot, gritty competitor, and the gnat constantly buzzing in U.S. ears.

Indeed, if not for the dramatic final 90 minutes, the match might have been best remembered on web archives everywhere for Tom’s indignant response to the Americans making him putt out about a 3-footer for par on the seventh hole. By the end, it seemed like that had happened days earlier.

There were so many theatrics over the last 10 holes. The back-and-forth was head-spinning. Tom Kim buried a 38-foot birdie putt at No. 9 to cut the U.S. lead to 1-up. At the next, Si Woo Kim drained a 15-footer and they were tied. They traded birdies at the 12th, and the Internationals gave a hole away with a bogey at 13. Tom set up Si Woo for a 6-foot birdie at 14, but Schauffele answered by making a 33-foot birdie for another 1-up advantage.

This where it looked like the tide would turn for good to the Americans. From the first cut at the par-4 16th, Tom Kim badly pushed his approach, and it landed in deep grass above a greenside bunker. Kim dropped to his knees and buried his head in his hands, disconsolate. He figured that shot had lost the match—and maybe the Presidents Cup. Marshals waved to the group that they couldn’t find Kim’s ball, and it took several minutes before it was discovered and ruled to be embedded, giving Sim Woo Kim a drop and much-improved lie.

He lashed the ball high into the air, it took a couple of soft bounces and dived into the hole, setting off an enormous roar from the gallery. The Kims made circles around the green, with Si Woo laying his head on his hands in what could be interpreted as him saying “good night.”

Cantlay joked afterward that he didn’t know what a “goodnight” gesture was until after the match. “I don’t care what they do,” he said. “I know they’re going to get amped up if they make birdies. They made a ton of birdies. They got amped up in front of the home crowd. Home crowd loved it. That’s great. That’s great for golf. We just made one more birdie.”

It was “good night” all right, for the Americans and for golf, even if the Internationals were probably in for a restless night ahead.

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com