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Golf Monthly
Golf Monthly
Sport
Paul Higham

'There's A Long Way To Go' - Mike Weir Targets Friday Fightback At Presidents Cup

International team Mike Weir poses with the Presidents Cup in Montreal.

International captain Mike Weir insists there's still a long way to go in the Presidents Cup despite Team USA's dominant start in Canada.

The home side go into Friday's Presidents Cup foursomes trailing 5-0 after a clean sweep from Jim Furyk's men on Thursday, but Weir is not about to throw the towel in already.

Weir says there's plenty of golf left to play, he has full confidence his team's spirit is strong enough to engineer a miraculous comeback and is hopeful of making in-roads on Friday.

Tom Kim is sitting out on Friday after his eventful match with Scottie Scheffler, and Weir is hoping a Canadian pairing of Mackenzie Hughes and Corey Conners can spark some life into a subdued home crowd at Royal Montreal Golf Club.

There are all sorts of problems for Weir to now fix if the hosts are to somehow get back into the Presidents Cup, but one thing not broken is the team spirit.

"The hardest part? Well, it's certainly not the team unity and the team spirit. Our guys are still very positive," said Weir.

"Look, reality is it wasn't a great day, but it's like the first period of a hockey game the way I look at it. You're down, but there's a long way to go. Still significant sessions left.

"That's the way we're looking at it."

Part of the response has to come in Fridays foursomes, where the captain hopes his Hughes-Conners partnership can help spark something with the Canadian home crowd.

"I mean, we hope that creates spark, but it's been a pair in my mind talked amongst us for a long time," said Weir.

"Not only are they good friends, but a lot of things show that it's a great pair, too. It wasn't like a knee-jerk reaction decision to what happened today or anything."

Weir has also dropped Kim from Friday's line-up, but he insists that was always the plan, and although they had such a disastrous start the International side are sticking to that plan.

"Well, that was part of the plan," Weir said of Kim not playing. "It was not a change after or anything. We have a plan for fourball, and we have a plan for foursomes. Tom wasn't in the plans for today but doesn't mean he might not be down the road.

"We're sticking with the plan.

"There was really nothing, talking amongst our guys, that swayed us to make any changes at all. Maybe if someone had gone out there and shot 9-under on their own ball or something like that, there may have been wiggle room to make an adjustment. Who knows.

"But we just feel like we had a plan in place going into the week. We like how it's lined up. So I would say no, there wasn't really any big discussion on making a change."

Presidents Cup Friday foursomes draw & tee times

  • 1:05pm Patrick Cantlay/Xander Schauffele v Hideki Matsuyama/Sungjae Im 
  • 1:19pm Sahith Theegala/Collin Morikawa v Adam Scott/Taylor Pendrith
  • 1:33pm Max Homa/Brian Harman v Christiaan Bezuidenhout/Jason Day 
  • 1:47pm Wyndham Clark/Tony Finau v Corey Conners/Mackenzie Hughes 
  • 2:01pm Scottie Scheffler/Russell Henley v Si Woo Kim/Byeong Hun An
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