THE PRESIDENTS CUP

September 28, 2024

Jim Furyk

Mike Weir

Royal Montreal Golf Club

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Good evening. I'm going to turn this over to Chief Referee Gary Young to take us through the pairings for round 5 Sunday singles.

GARY YOUNG: Good evening, and welcome, everyone, to round 5 selections for the Presidents Cup. Round 5 will be played singles format and have 12 matches. All 12 players from each team will be selected for play.

Team totals are currently International Team 7, United States 11.

As a reminder, each team will have two minutes to make their selections.

The United States Team selected first in round 4. Therefore, the International Team will select first in round 5.

Captain Weir, your selection for match 19.

MIKE WEIR: Jason Day.

GARY YOUNG: The International Team selects Jason Day.

Captain Furyk, your pick.

JIM FURYK: Xander Schauffele.

GARY YOUNG: The United States Team selects Xander Schauffele.

Captain Furyk, your pick for match 20.

JIM FURYK: Sam Burns.

GARY YOUNG: The United States Team selects Sam Burns.

Captain Weir, your pick, please.

MIKE WEIR: Tom Kim.

GARY YOUNG: The International Team selects Tom Kim.

Match 21, Captain Weir, your pick, please.

MIKE WEIR: Hideki Matsuyama.

GARY YOUNG: The International Team selects Hideki Matsuyama.

Captain Furyk, your pick.

JIM FURYK: Scottie Scheffler.

GARY YOUNG: The United States picks Scottie Scheffler.

Captain Furyk, your pick for match 22.

JIM FURYK: Russell Henley.

GARY YOUNG: The United States picks Russell Henley.

Captain Weir.

MIKE WEIR: Sungjae Im.

GARY YOUNG: The International Team selects Sungjae Im.

The International Team will select first in match 23.

MIKE WEIR: Taylor Pendrith.

GARY YOUNG: International Team selects Taylor Pendrith.

Captain Furyk, your pick for match 23.

JIM FURYK: Patrick Cantlay.

GARY YOUNG: The United States Team selects Patrick Cantlay.

Match 24, Captain Furyk.

JIM FURYK: Keegan Bradley.

GARY YOUNG: The United States Team selects Keegan Bradley.

Captain Weir, your pick for match 24.

MIKE WEIR: Si Woo Kim.

GARY YOUNG: The International Team has selected Si Woo Kim.

Match 25, Captain Weir, your pick, please.

MIKE WEIR: Corey Conners.

GARY YOUNG: The International Team selects Corey Conners.

Captain Furyk.

JIM FURYK: Tony Finau.

GARY YOUNG: The United States Team selects Tony Finau.

Captain Furyk, you'll select first in match 26.

JIM FURYK: Wyndham Clark.

GARY YOUNG: The United States selects Wyndham Clark.

Captain Weir, your selection, please.

MIKE WEIR: Min Woo Lee.

GARY YOUNG: The International Team selects Min Woo Lee.

Captain Weir, your pick for match 27.

MIKE WEIR: Ben An.

GARY YOUNG: The International Team selects Ben An.

Captain Furyk, your pick for match 27.

JIM FURYK: Sahith Theegala.

GARY YOUNG: The United States selects Sahith Theegala.

Captain Furyk, your pick for match 28, please.

JIM FURYK: Collin Morikawa.

GARY YOUNG: The United States selects Collin Morikawa.

Captain Weir.

MIKE WEIR: Adam Scott.

GARY YOUNG: The International Team selects Adam Scott.

Captain Weir, your pick for match 29.

MIKE WEIR: Christiaan Bezuidenhout.

GARY YOUNG: The International Team selects Christiaan Bezuidenhout.

Captain Furyk, your pick for match 29.

JIM FURYK: Brian Harman.

GARY YOUNG: The United States selects Brian Harman.

We have two players left. They will play in match 30. For the United States, it will be Max Homa, and for the International Team, it will be Mackenzie Hughes.

The weather forecast tomorrow calls for sunny skies, 72 degrees, 22 degrees celsius. Winds will be light and variable.

The first tee time tomorrow will be at 12:02 p.m.

as a reminder, the United States has the honor.

Gentlemen, play well and good luck.

Q. Just looking at the day in its entirety, what led to the decision to keep the pairings and sit the boys out today? Was there anything health related with Jason Day?

MIKE WEIR: No, nothing's up health-wise with Jason. We went 5-0 yesterday and had a lot of momentum. We talked it through, and that was it. We had a plan. We had a plan for some other things too. That's why we meet and go through these things. But nothing health related that left any of the other guys out.

Q. Mike, sometimes in these events, it seems like momentum plays a very strange role across multiple matches. The last hour, it was just almost unbelievable where everything except that chip-in seemed to go against you guys. Do you agree with that? What was it like to experience it out there, and what do you have to say about it, I guess?

MIKE WEIR: Yeah, these team competitions, they're emotional roller coasters, no doubt. There's a lot of excitement out there. I thought both teams played great. I thought the quality was high level today.

Hat's off to the U.S. guys. They played great down the stretch. They holed some key putts. They played the 18th hole really well when those matches have been close, and that's why they have the lead right now on some of those pivotal holes.

Yeah, that's kind of what I see, like to your point of the emotion going up and down. Yeah, that's part of team golf. I think in these events it's big emotional roller coasters.

Q. Mike, you mentioned the 18th hole. Actually the United States has been better on 16, 17, and 18 specifically today. What can you do, if anything, tomorrow to sort of change that fortune?

MIKE WEIR: Our guys are keen to get out there and change that narrative, and they'll be ready. I can't change that narrative. The guys have got to step up there and hit the shots and make the putts.

Again, hat's off to the U.S. guys. First few days they've done that, and hopefully we do it tomorrow.

Q. Jim, you obviously had some guys play 36 holes today. I'm just wondering how much, if any, consideration you gave to fatigue on making those roster decisions?

JIM FURYK: I think someone -- I guess you could get through this without -- if everyone played four matches, you could get through it without five, but I would be willing to bet that's never happened in a Presidents Cup. They're always going to have some guys that play five.

For us, I think that was, just off the top of my head, Scottie, Xander, Pat, and Collin, is that correct? Four pretty darned good players.

I think after coming off the 0-5 Friday, your goal is to, all right, they're coming strong. They played a heck of a session, and we have to stop that momentum. So you're trying to get your most experienced players, the guys that have been in that position before, out there on the golf course.

Again, a lot of it works with pairings and how they match up and a little bit, I guess, with how you place them in the session.

Q. So you weren't thinking at all about potentially 36 holes of action and the wear and tear of that?

JIM FURYK: It's a little different than the Ryder Cup in that in the Ryder Cup you've got 36 on Friday, 36 on Saturday. Therefore, trying to play five matches in that is a little bit more grueling.

Here - correct me if I'm wrong - Mike had eight guys go 36 today. I think both of us are looking at it as, hey, I've got to get the guys on the golf course that I think give us the best opportunities.

I'm 54. I just walked 36. I'm pretty tired. But most of these guys are about my kids' age. I think they can probably handle that, I think. I think Mike's thinking the same thing.

Q. Mike, would you agree with that assessment?

MIKE WEIR: I was wandering, but yeah, to the last point of what Jim was saying about walking the course, yeah, I'm a little tired. We're trying to get our best guys out there, and what we talked about as a group, it just didn't happen for us today.

But these are 12 awesome players we have on our team. We have tremendous belief in them. They have tremendous belief in themselves. It's the best group of guys I've ever been around. We love them, and we know they're going to come out fighting hard tomorrow.

Q. Just wondering what you thought of Tom and Si Woo's performances today, their emotion, and that's what you want to see from your team?

MIKE WEIR: Well, that's what those guys bring when they play together, right? It was awesome. It was an awesome match. Floating around a little bit and catching bits and pieces, yeah, it was tremendous. Tremendous match. Tremendous fight by both teams.

I loved what I saw in both those guys. They were great today.

Q. One quick follow-up, Mike. The four guys that sat today, were they aware of that yesterday? At what point were they made aware they weren't going to play?

MIKE WEIR: We got pretty late into the evening making decisions, which we do in these team things. The captains kind of sometimes go late. So we let the guys sleep in a little bit.

Most of the guys knew. There was a couple of guys that didn't know until they woke up, but they were going to be on the later bus, not the morning session. There was maybe some discussion for the afternoon. But they were let know pretty early in the day that that's the way it was going to go.

Q. Jim, what did you see today? What was your strongest memory from today?

JIM FURYK: Well, I think in both sessions I stood on the 13th tee a lot. In the first session, Damon Hack came over to interview me. First thing he said is, hey, Tommy just said there's three red numbers up on the board. Give us your opinion of what's going on, and I looked, and I want to say the International Team had a match out there that was 2- or 3-up, and we had three red 1s on the board.

So I wasn't feeling at that point like, oh, wow, we've got a 3-1 match. I'm looking at 1-up, which could disappear pretty quickly. 13 and 18 are dramatic holes. Again, I think my guys, like we did on Thursday, they played those holes down the stretch very well, able to close out some matches. That 3-1 could have easily been 2-2. It could have been 3-1 or 2½-1½ their side. That's kind of how team things go.

In the afternoon, you saw the same thing. The Scheffler-Henley match, 3-down middle of the front nine, and they end up winning 3&2. The Morikawa match and Burns, huge, huge lift for our team to see that ahead, to come back, fight, win the 18th hole. Things like that, that's a big tipping point.

Really the matches were close today. I know what the score looks like. I think the same thing you saw on Thursday, the score looked bad at 5-0, but man, those matches were all really, really tight. They just happened to go our way.

Tomorrow I think keeping our focus, not getting ahead of ourselves, being prepared. I know the guys are tired right now. They want to get some rest and come out firing again tomorrow. We had to come out today like the Internationals had to come out on Friday. So it will be a gunfight out there tomorrow. Looking forward to it.

Q. What was your reaction when Pat's putt went in on 18?

JIM FURYK: I think I screamed pretty loud, I'll say that. Our side was excited. I wanted to make sure everyone calmed down and gave the other team the courtesy of trying to knock that putt in.

But, yeah, excitement. It's a big -- coming up 18 with that match, there's three options. We're going to go into tomorrow 2-up, 3-up, or 4-up. So huge putt. If you had to hand select someone to hit a big putt on your team, I think Pat would come to a lot of people's minds.

Q. Scottie and Sam had good weeks after being split up. Was that one where they came to you guys and said they were willing to try something new, or you guys came to them and said maybe it's time to try new pairings?

JIM FURYK: It's something we talked about. I think there was always an option for them to go out and play in certain formats. Kind of liked -- I liked what we did. I thought Russ and Scottie really gelled well. You're always looking for -- we talked about it before, I threw one different foursome pairing out there today, but I kind of look at the 10-man pairings a little different than the 8-man pairings. So you're always just trying to be prepared.

Again, we talked about maybe trying not to get too many guys going 36. We're weighing all that. You're also looking at the score and where you're at at the time and what you need on the golf course.

Q. For one of these press conferences before this event started, I asked you who you thought could be kind of a secret weapon, and with all the names you could choose, you picked Min Woo Lee. I'm just curious why did you sit him for the last three sessions?

MIKE WEIR: We think he can be, yeah, a big weapon tomorrow. That's our goal. We have a lot of internal discussions about these things. I was hoping to maybe get him in a little bit more, but it just didn't work out that way.

Q. Jim, what did you learn from 2018 and being on these other teams that made you think, if I do get ahead this week, I'm going to front load on Sunday?

JIM FURYK: Well, first and foremost, I would say I've got a lot of confidence in all 12 of those guys. We had a plan with kind of how we wanted to put out our pairings today. I talked to my captains out there on the golf course the last three or four holes and just reminded them, no matter what happens, if we do finish tonight, that time goes really quick. They gave us 45 minutes after the putt went in on 18.

By the time you get back, by the time you start talking, the time goes really quickly. So I think what I learned most was just to be really organized, really prepared. I've got four amazing assistants. We talked all week about trying to take that, a lot of information in a very short period of time and trying to funnel it down and come up with a good plan.

I said it earlier this week, sometimes that plan works, and sometimes it doesn't. But all the credit goes to the guys that hit the shots and make the putts. Just proud of my guys the way they hung in there today and the way they fought and ground after a bad Friday session.

Q. It's the same deficit you guys had last time. Does it feel any different, or does it feel the same?

MIKE WEIR: Let me think back to Charlotte. We had strong belief there too. If I remember correctly, being an away game, it was pretty quiet there middle afternoon in Charlotte. The tides turned a little bit and the U.S. played great, but it was looking very close through the middle of that day and the middle of those singles matches for our team. There was a lot of very close 1-up matches either way.

You guys all know golf. We know how close these matches are, as Jim said earlier. We just have tremendous belief in our guys. Might feel similar to what it was in Charlotte, but I'm just telling you, I mean, maybe there's an upgrade in belief for our team even from Charlotte.

There was a lot going for Captain Trev with that other tour that started up. There was other distractions. Our guys aren't distracted this time, and they're focused and they're ready.