Scottie Scheffler and Patrick Cantlay put the Americans back in control at Presidents Cup

US team member Patrick Cantlay reacts after making the winning putt on the 18th hole during their fourth round foursomes match at the Presidents Cup golf tournament at Royal Montreal Golf Club Saturday in Montreal. (AP)
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Updated 29 September 2024
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Scottie Scheffler and Patrick Cantlay put the Americans back in control at Presidents Cup

  • Scottie Scheffler delivered big moments late in both of his matches, and Cantlay’s putt from just inside 17 feet in the dark gave the Americans another win, another point
  • International need to win eight of the 12 singles matches Sunday for a tie, and halve another if they want to win for the first time since 1998

MONTREAL: Patrick Cantlay couldn’t have hit the putt — he might not have seen the hole — without lights from a video board and the headlamps from golf carts surrounding the 18th green in the final match of the longest day at the Presidents Cup.

And then he delivered another “Patty Ice” moment that might have been enough to turn the lights out on the International team Saturday.

Scottie Scheffler delivered big moments late in both of his matches, and Cantlay’s putt from just inside 17 feet in the dark gave the Americans another win, another point, moving them one session closer to another Presidents Cup victory.

“Huge putt,” US captain Jim Furyk said. “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.”

They won the fourballs and foursomes sessions by a 3-1 margin. Cantlay and Xander Schauffele won on the 18th over Tom Kim and Si Wood Kim, the high-charged South Korean duo, that gave the Americans an 11-7 lead at Royal Montreal.

“Xander helped me read it,” Cantlay said of his match winner in near darkness. “It was like a cup out with some speed, and a putt like that will make me sleep a little better tonight.”

It was Si Woo Kim who chipped in from deep rough below the 16th green that gave his side hope, and he leaned his cheek into his hands the “Good Night” gesture made famous from Stephen Curry in the Paris Olympics this summer.

That turned out to be an early call.

Tom Kim said he could hear some American players cursing at them, though it wasn’t corroborated and Schauffele said he didn’t know to what the 22-year-old was referring. Most of the matches have been tight all week. The crowd has been loud. It has gotten chippy at times, expected in these team competitions.

What hasn’t changed is the Internationals face a big deficit.

They need to win eight of the 12 singles matches Sunday for a tie, and halve another if they want to win for the first time since 1998 — four years before Tom Kim was born — and only the second time since the Presidents Cup began in 1994.

International captain Mike Weir sat out four players all of Saturday, wanting to ride the teams that helped get his side back into the match with that 5-0 shutout on Friday.

One of them was Jason Day, who will be first out Sunday against Schauffele.

It’s the same deficit from two years ago, and Weir recalls the Internationals — a team facing distractions in 2022 of losing players who defected to Saudi-backed LIV Golf — making the Quail Hollow crowd quiet and the Americans sweat.

“We just have tremendous belief in our guys,” Weir said. “Might feel similar to what it was in Charlotte, but I’m just telling you, maybe there’s an upgrade in belief for our team.”

Tom Kim sounded even more determined, bordering on angry.

“I am so motivated to go out tomorrow ... because we’ve lost so many times, there’s going to be one day where it’s just going to be our day,” he said. “I believe it’s tomorrow.

“If we fall short, we’ll try again. That’s what we are. We’ll keep trying. There’s going to be one time when we’re going to hold the Cup, and it’s going to be sometime soon.”

Scheffler finished off a tight fourballs match with two late birdies in a morning session delayed 90 minutes by fog, and then he gave the Americans their first lead in foursomes with a wedge into a foot on the 14th hole that led to another point.

Scheffler started both matches slowly. Collin Morikawa kept them in the game in fourballs until Scheffler hit a dart from 195 yards to 8 feet for birdie on the 16th, and rolled in a 15-foot putt from off the green on the 17th for the win.

Russell Henley carried him in foursomes, especially after Scheffler missed par putts from 6 feet and 3 feet as they fell 3 down after five holes. But the world’s No. 1 player delivered late with a wedge into a foot on the 14th for their first lead and a 12-foot birdie on the next to take control.

“I have the best player in the world on my team, and we just kind of hung in there,” Henley said.

Adam Scott, playing in his 11th Presidents Cup without ever being on the winning side, carried Taylor Pendrith to a 2-and-1 victory in the afternoon foursomes over Brian Harman and Max Homa, the only International point in foursomes.

Si Woo Kim and Tom Kim won big over Keegan Bradley and Wyndham Clark in morning fourballs for the lone International victory.

They were all square or leading in all the afternoon matches at one point until the Americans took control, as they often do. Morikawa and Burns dug out of an early hole and beat the Canadian duo of Corey Conners and Mackenzie Hughes on the 18th hole when when Hughes hit a poor chip and Conners never came close on the 12-foot par putt.

In the anchor match in the morning, Im three times matched birdies against Cantlay and Burns to keep the match from getting out of hand. Cantlay chipped in for eagle on the 12th for a 2-up lead and he twice kept the Internationals from coming back by making putts from 25 feet and 18 feet when they were in tight.

“The guy’s an absolute assassin,” Burns said about Cantlay.


Sabalenka powers past Osaka into Indian Wells quarter-finals

Updated 11 March 2026
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Sabalenka powers past Osaka into Indian Wells quarter-finals

  • Sabalenka wrapped up the first set with two breaks of serve before Osaka began to find her rhythm

INDIAN WELLS, United States: World number one Aryna Sabalenka powered into the Indian Wells quarter-finals on Tuesday, beating former champion Naomi Osaka 6-2, 6-4 in a battle of Grand Slam winners.
It was another straightforward, straight-sets victory for Sabalenka, who fired 31 winners with eight aces.
“Overall I’m happy that I put so much pressure on her, that I brought variety today on the court,” said Sabalenka, who mixed her booming groundstrokes with effective forays to the net.
“I think she was a little confused in the key moments, and I’m happy to see that,” Sabalenka said. “I’m happy that my serve worked well, on the return I played really great tennis.”
Sabalenka wrapped up the first set with two breaks of serve before Osaka began to find her rhythm.
But the Japanese star was unable to crack the serve of Sabalenka, who saved both break points she faced in the second set and grabbed a break for 4-3 with a pair of forehand winners.
It was just the second meeting between the two, both four-time Grand Slam champions.
Osaka won the first back in 2018 on the way to her first major title at the US Open.
“That’s actually crazy,” Sabalenka said of the fact they haven’t met more often. But she predicted there were more clashes in their future as Osaka, now ranked 16th, regains her momentum on the WTA Tour after taking off all of 2023 and having daughter, Shai, in July of that year.
Sabalenka, runner-up at Indian Wells in 2023 and 2025, will continue her pursuit of a first title in the prestigious ATP and WTA Masters 1000 event against either sixth-seeded American Amanda Anisimova or 10th-seeded Canadian teen Victoria Mboko.
Australian qualifier Talia Gibson’s dream run in the California desert continued with a 7-5, 2-6, 6-1 victory over seventh-ranked Italian Jasmine Paolini.
The 21-year-old’s first victory over a top-10 player propelled her into her first WTA quarter-final, where she’ll face either Czech Linda Noskova or Alexandra Eala of the Philippines.
Gibson, ranked 112th, used a late break to pocket the first set, closing it out with her 18th winner of the opening frame.
Paolini sped to a 3-0 lead in the second as Gibson’s errors mounted and it looked as if the experienced Italian, a two-time Grand Slam finalist, had seized control.
But Gibson unleashed a barrage of winners in the third, including a stinging forehand service return on match point.
“Honestly, just completely speechless,” said Gibson, who beat top-20 players Ekaterina Alexandrova and Clara Tauson on the way to the fourth round.