CHARLOTTE, NC – The International Team will feature two experienced players in the opening match of the 14th edition of the Presidents Cup on Thursday at Quail Hollow Club.
In the opener, former Masters champion Adam Scott of Australia and Hideki Matsuyama of Japan will play Patrick Cantley and Xander Schaufel.
After that, Team USA, which has won 11 of the last 13 Presidents Cups, including eight in a row, proved to have a huge advantage, at least on paper. Team USA’s 12-man roster includes five top-10 players in the Official World Golf Ranking. The international team has nothing.
On Thursday, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas will face Sungjae Im and Corey Connors in the second match. Cameron Young and Colin Morikawa play Tom Kim and KH Lee in the third. Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns battle Si Woo Kim and Cam Davis in the fourth. And Tony Finau and Max Homa take on Taylor Pendrith and Mito Pereira in the final match of the day.
“This team was different from the past,” said Team USA captain Davis Love III, who has coached two Ryder Cup teams. “There were a lot of obvious couples, and there were a lot of guys who got along really well. So the obvious ones made the others a little bit harder because everybody got along so well, and nobody said, well, ‘That guy’s hard to match.’ It’s hard to pick two to sit on, that’s our problem.
Kevin Kisner and Billy Horschel sit out Thursday’s game for the Americans, and South Africa’s Christian Bezuidenhout and Colombia’s Sebastian Munoz are not playing for the international team.
The teams will compete in four-ball (optional shots) on Thursday, followed by five four-ball (best-ball) matches on Friday. Each match is worth one point; Matches score half a point per team. There are 30 games played over four days, and the team that gets to 15½ points wins the Presidents Cup. If the teams meet after Sunday’s 12 singles matches, there is no playoff.
