THE PRESIDENTS CUP

September 27, 2024

Tony Finau

Scottie Scheffler

Royal Montreal Golf Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We'd like to welcome U.S. Team members Tony Finau and Scottie Scheffler to the press room.

Q. For Tony, can you just compare or contrast the atmosphere today compared to yesterday?

TONY FINAU: The atmosphere was a lot different. The energy was a lot different today than it was yesterday. The crowds were -- there were a lot more people, which just brought energy to the event today compared to yesterday. From an environment standpoint, there's no question that there was more energy on the international side, and the Canadian fans definitely showed up today.

Q. Obviously you're playing against two Canadians. Did you feel that elevated, I guess, the boisterousness of the crowd, how loud they were, because you were going against two local guys?

TONY FINAU: No question. Mac and Corey played great. On a day like today, you tip your cap to the guys that played better, and in our case, they definitely played better than we did. They were able to use the crowd behind them to their advantage.

But we definitely felt the energy right out of the gate. I hit the first tee shot yesterday in our group, and I hit the first tee shot today. It was night-and-day difference, I think just the noise and the energy.

We love that, and although we didn't show out today, hopefully the fans come back out over the next couple days for the show.

Q. It might be a strange time to ask this question for Scottie, but even though you lost, it felt like for the second straight day you and Russell played pretty well together. It seemed like there's some chemistry there. Am I right about that? If so, what's working for you guys?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: Yeah, like Tony said, I think some of us played some good golf today. Today was an important day for them. They really, really went out and played great. It seemed like late in the round yesterday they were hitting a lot of good putts that were kind of going around the edge. Today those putts were going right in the back of the cup. Just tip of the hat to those guys.

I think the stuff Russell and I did today, we played really solid golf. We just weren't able to hole the putts we needed to. Hit some good putts out there. Russell hit some really good putts that I thought were going in and just missed. That's how it goes. They rode a lot of momentum from the crowd today. They just played some really good golf.

Q. What's the mentality now going to tomorrow?

Obviously yesterday and today were pretty different. Do you wipe the slate? Do you use this as motivation? Like how do you use what's happened to take you forward?

TONY FINAU: A little bit of both. You learn from today, but we've got three sessions left. That's the message to our guys. We know there's a lot of golf to be played. We played great yesterday, and they played great today. Now we're back to square one, where it's a tie moving forward.

So it's a dogfight, and I like my 11 guys in a dogfight over the next three rounds.

Q. Are there other times during the year other than these team events where it feels like a lot of people are like rooting against you?

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I would say this is pretty much the only tournament where I've ever experienced that. Definitely wouldn't really happen too much in a stroke play event. I think sometimes there's more of like a bad taste in that, that kind of thing happening in a stroke play event.

Just because there's so many guys to root for here; it's one team against another, and I think it's pretty cool. I think it's a fun event. I loved playing away games when I was in high school, playing basketball. Hearing stuff from the crowd I think only makes us more motivated to go out there and do our best.

The environment, like Tony said, today from yesterday, was drastically different. I thought today the crowd did a great job, got into it, gave the guys some good energy, and they fed off of it. It's our job to go out there tomorrow and do our best and hopefully keep them a little bit quieter.

Q. I'm just wondering, did you feel like there was maybe a little bit more chippiness today than yesterday? Do you feel like you perform better in those circumstances or maybe worse?

TONY FINAU: I don't know about chippiness, but you know that there was a sense of urgency that the International Team had to play with. They brought it with the crowd, as we mentioned, with the environment. The crowd really brought it. Then they backed it up with their play.

On a day like today, as I mentioned before, you tip your cap to the guys. They had a great day, as we did yesterday, but now we're back to square one. Our team is looking ahead. We've got a lot of golf to be played. That's the thing. There's three more sessions to go, and we're going to learn from today.

At the end of the day, it's like, again, I like our 12 guys in a dogfight. That's what we have, and we're going to be up for the challenge.

SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER: I'll second that with just there's 30 points available. 10 of the points are done. There's 20 more to go get. All of us -- the only thing each one of us can do is to go out and do our best to try to get a point and not worry about the other stuff.