Team USA continued to assert their dominance of the Presidents Cup by claiming a 18.5-11.5 victory against the International team to clinch their 10th consecutive triumph.
Team USA, led by Jim Furyk, entered the final day of the competition at Royal Montreal Golf Club with a 11-7 lead, needing only 4.5 more points from the 12 singles matches to retain their title.
The likes of Xander Schauffele, Russell Henley, and Patrick Cantlay secured comfortable wins over Jason Day, Sungjae Im, and Taylor Pendrith, respectively, bringing Team USA closer to the required total. But it was Keegan Bradley who delivered the all important winning point for the Americans by defeating Kim Si-woo on the final hole to bring his team to 15.5 points despite the fact there were a few matches yet to be concluded.
The Americans went onto win six of the twelve single matches to further extend their already impressive winning streak over the International team who have not found success in this competition since 1998.
“That was incredible,” Bradley said. “I was saying all week I didn’t know if I’d ever get to do this again. If this is my last round as a [USA] player, maybe it is, I’m happy with that.”
“We’ve put a lot of heart and soul into it,” Furyk said speaking to Golf Channel.
“Ultimately these players were amazing. It was a really good group of 12, an easy bunch. I had great leadership at the top.
“They made the captain’s job really easy, and these guys played their hearts out this week, and they really played well on the back nine. We talked about being a dog all week, being the tougher team.
“I just feel like those back nine holes if you looked at how many holes won and lost, I’ve got to feel like we kind of owned the back nine this week, and that was the difference.”
For the International team, it was yet another struggle despite signs of promise during various stages of the competition.
South Africa’s Christiaan Bezuidenhout was the only player on the team with a winning record (2-1-0), while there were also some other solid showings from the likes of Australia’s Adam Scott who made Presidents Cup history by accumulating 22 career points, the most ever by any International player in the competition’s history.
“A lot of these matches were so close,” International team captain Mike Weir said, becoming the latest in a long line of International captains unable to overcome Team USA.
It’s disappointing not to get a win. We put our team together to win this thing. “I’m going to be thinking about things I could have done differently. I think that’s human nature when you don’t win … I’ll have plenty of time to do that after.”