Presidents Cup at Medinah: U.S. Led All Eight Saturday Matches, Walked Away With One Point

At the 18th hole, Nick Taylor chipped his third shot from the edge of the green to six feet. Corey Conners stepped over the putt. Before this week began, he ranked 155th out of 157 PGA Tour players from 4 to 8 feet — a statistic anyone who follows him already knows. Conners poured it dead center. The final match of Saturday closed, the International side banked a full point, and Canada gained one more afternoon worth retelling.

I was sitting in row seven behind the 10th tee when that match drifted toward the 15th. Russell Henley and Jacob Bridgeman were 3 UP through ten holes. Henley chunked the team's third shot into a bunker. Fifteen minutes later, Conners and Taylor won 1 UP. The final scoreboard read International 10.5, United States 7.5. We had entered Saturday at 7-3.

The context of a course that knows how to betray

Medinah Country Club sits outside Chicago, the place where the U.S. once overturned a 10-6 deficit against Europe at the 2026 Ryder Cup. This course favors no one. Wind off Lake Michigan picks up in the afternoon, making the greens play roughly half a meter per hour faster than expected. The wind I recorded years ago still blows through me whenever the course is empty — and at Medinah, the wind is never truly empty.

Presidents Cup format: each session features four four-ball matches (each player plays his own ball, best score counts) or foursomes (alternate shot with one ball). A win is worth one point, a halve is worth half. The first side to 15.5 points lifts the cup. After three days, the Internationals need 5 points from Sunday singles; the U.S. needs 8.

The real story sits in how the matches unfolded. The U.S. led all four matches on Saturday morning. The U.S. led all four matches again on Saturday afternoon. The day's return: exactly one point. From 7-3 to 10.5-7.5. I have sat at Medinah long enough to know that when the U.S. leads, it usually closes. This time it did not.

What happens when a lead refuses to become a point

Study the match cards and the strangeness deepens. In the morning, the U.S. controlled play but let the Internationals claw back on the closing holes. The afternoon repeated the pattern. Sean Zak, my colleague on site, described the International side's caddies and coaches bracing as if a red wave kept crashing into them — and that wave receded carrying only one point.

Justin Thomas is the case that lingers. After an opening-session win, he played as poorly as anyone expected to deliver. Medinah is a big ballpark; Thomas kept missing fairways. For a player the U.S. leans on, missing fairways means gifting opponents short-grass approaches. Thomas was not alone, but he was the costliest.

On the other side, Si Woo Kim is the first name in my notebook. He and Tom Kim are the only players with three points through Saturday, each at 3-1-0. On Saturday morning, Si Woo closed his match with birdies at 16 and 17. That is the kind of finish the Internationals need: no flourish, just a door shut on time.

By the afternoon, Cantlay and Schauffele took down the Kim pairing. This is the cruel part of team format. The captain keeps sending you out, and by your third match of the day, your legs stop listening. Saturday-afternoon Si Woo was no longer Saturday-morning Si Woo.

Wyndham Clark is the name I raise when talking about the gap between results and form. His record reads 1-3, which sounds like a disastrous week. But nobody putted better at Medinah, on either side. In match play, putting decides matches. Clark could easily be 3-1 had three critical putts dropped instead of lipping out. Team results measure moments, not form.

A team is led not only by tactics but by the way people call each other's names. At Medinah, the name called most was Si Woo Kim — until the afternoon arrived and he no longer had the legs to be himself.

What the U.S. should have done differently: benching Scheffler was a mistake

This is the point I cannot skip. Scottie Scheffler sat out Saturday afternoon foursomes. I understand the technical reasoning: his foursomes record is sketchy, and finding him a perfect partner has never been smooth. But Scheffler is the world's No. 1. I sat near the family and support area that afternoon, watching him joke with relatives while two U.S. teams let leads slip into deficits — including Sam Burns, who could have partnered him.

I am not one for oversimplification. But if you have Scottie Scheffler, you play Scottie Scheffler. In the rhythm of the transfer market, everyone watches the clock; I listen for footsteps leaving — and at Medinah, that sound was Scheffler walking out of the competition area while the matches were still open.

There is a deeper issue. Brandt Snedeker, the U.S. captain, took responsibility in Saturday night's press conference. What he emphasized was the desire to keep the team comfortable at all times. That is the line U.S. captains keep repeating across administrations. But the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup were never designed for comfort. They were designed to apply maximum pressure. When a team is coached to feel at ease in an event built to make you uneasy, that team is preparing for a subtle but systemic defeat.

That does not mean Snedeker got everything wrong. At this level, a captain controls only a few decisions: who partners with whom, who rests which session, who faces whom on Sunday. Those three decisions, added together, tilted toward the Internationals on Saturday.

The gamble of Sunday singles

The match worth watching on Sunday is Nico Echavarria against Scottie Scheffler. The pairing process works like this: one captain offers a name, the other counters. If I am the U.S. captain, I want Scheffler staring down the Internationals' strongest player and taking him out — strength on strength. Instead, the U.S. offered Scheffler first. Geoff Ogilvy and the International staff practically grinned as they countered with Echavarria, who has played only once this week.

That is a psychological move. Echavarria enters with nothing to lose, slighted, facing the world's No. 1. The Internationals saved their stronger players for every other matchup. In 2026, I learned that the second grandstand has no seats but real people in it — and at Medinah, that second grandstand is chanting Echavarria's name like an untold hero.

What remains

When a name is sung by an entire grandstand, it becomes an address of the heart. On Sunday at Medinah, the Internationals need 5 points from 12 singles matches. The U.S. needs 8. With a deep roster and the world's No. 1 coming off a full session of rest, 8 is not impossible. But if the U.S. again leads seven matches early only to surrender seven late, nobody will ask about technique anymore. They will ask about how a group is called by name.