Last Updated on 26 Sep 2022 2:13 pm (UK Time)
So, after two days of competition at the 2022 Presidents Cup, The Americans held a rather large 8-2 lead, winning both the Foursomes and the Fourballs 4-1, could the international side somehow fight back on Saturday to give themselves a chance of grabbing an unlikely win on Sunday or even making it competitive until the end?
Saturday morning saw four matches take place, here is how those went…
Round Three: Foursomes
Jordan Speith/Justin Thomas defeated Sungjae Im/Corey Conners 4&3
Adam Scott/Hideki Matsuyama defeated Cameron Young/Collin Morikawa 3&2
K.H. Lee/Tom Kim defeated Scottie Scheffler/Sam Burns 2&1
Tony Finau/Max Homa defeated Si Woo Kim/Cam Davis 4&3
The Speith/Thomas juggernaut marched on as they kept their 100% record in this year’s tournament going with victory in the first match out on Saturday morning, Scott/Matsuyama did much much better second time around as a paring, winning their match against Young/Morikawa, and Scheffler/Burns were beaten in the foursomes again, going down to the pairing of K.H. Lee/Kim.
Although the American duo of Finau/Homa saw off Kim/Davis in the final morning foursomes match to come out 2-2 in that season and hold onto their six-point cushion at 10-4 heading into the afternoon Fourball, the visitors needed something special if they were to keep the match alive.
Round Four: Fourball
Si Woo Kim/Tom Kim defeated Patrick Cantlay/Zander Schauffele 1up
Justin Thomas/Jordan Speith defeated Hideki Matsuyama/Taylor Pendrith 4&3
Sungjae Im/Sebastian Munoz defeated Tony Finau/Keven Kisner 3&2
Adam Scott/Cam Davis defeated Billy Horshchel/Sam Burns 1up
The International side finally won their first session of the match, and boy what a time to do it heading into Sunday’s singles. Kim & Kim paired up to beat the 100% duo of Cantley & Schauffele in the top match of the afternoon, Im & Munoz saw off Finau & matchplay specialist Kisner, and the Aussie pair of Scott & Davis defeated Horschel & Burns in a very tight contest which went down to the final hole.
The only USA win in the Saturday afternoon session was of course the unbeatable paring of Speith & Thomas who made it four wins from four after beating Matsuyama & Pendrith, but it meant heading into the singles USA held an 11-7 lead, so only four points in it, could the Internationals pull of the unthinkable?
Round Five: Singles
Si Woo Kim defeated Justin Thomas 1up
Jordan Speith defeated Cam Davis 4&3
Sam Burns tied with Hideki Matsuyama
Patrick Cantlay defeated Adam Scott 3&2
Sebastian Munoz defeated Scottie Scheffler 2&1
Tony Finau defeated Taylor Pendrith 3&1
Zander Schauffele defeated Corey Conners 1up
Sungjae Im defeated Cameron Young 1up
K.H. Lee defeated Billy Horschel 3&1
Max Homa defeated Tom Kim 1up
Collin Morikawa defeated Mito Pereira 3&2
Christiaan Bezuidenhout defeated Kevin Kisner 2&1
It has to be said though the visiting side can be proud of how well they railed over the weekend after a disappointing couple of days leading up to it, in the end, the Americans had to much firepower as predicted and still won the whole thing fairly comfortably, although it wasn’t an embarrassing defeat as many feared for the Internationals so all in all a very good four days competition.
