MONTREAL — The Quebec crowd wasn’t exactly boisterous Thursday afternoon, so the Royal Montreal gallery jolted at the sheer volume of the shout from the No. 1 player in the world. It was piercing. It was unexpected. It changed the tenor of the match. Scottie Scheffler was on autopilot for six holes of Presidents Cup four-ball. He wasn’t bad. He wasn’t good. It was one par after another in a tight match.
Until Tom Kim poked the bear.
The 22-year-old South Korean thought he was finally on the board as he sunk a winding, slow-rolling 27-foot birdie putt on No. 7 to potentially bring the match within one. He turned and shouted, “Let’s go!” while riling up the fans as much as he could as Scheffler set up his equally difficult 27-foot putt.
Scheffler’s putt rolled and rolled, and before the ball was even in the hole, the normally calm, chill Scheffler turned his entire body directly at Kim, his eyes lasered in on him to ask a question.
“WHAT WAS THAT?” Scheffler shouted.
Electric match play energy on the 7th green as Tom Kim and Scottie Scheffler make dueling birdie putts. ⚡️👀
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And for a brief time, the match between two dear friends turned intense. It toed that beautiful yet fine line between loving jocularity and the sincere hostility we see at these cups. When Kim and Scheffler both found the green on 8, Kim made his 24-foot birdie putt before once again waving his arms at the crowd. International captain’s assistant Camilo Villegas then walked to Kim and partner Sungjae Im and said a few words before the team walked off through the crowd and on to the ninth tee before Scheffler finished his putt, an aggressive move that NBC analyst Paul McGinley called “disrespectful.” When U.S. captain’s assistant Kevin Kisner noticed, he got into it with Villegas.
“I didn’t like what they did on 8,” Kisner told The Athletic. “You’re gonna piss off the No. 1 player in the world?”
This is where we should pump the brakes and paint the whole picture here. Scheffler and Kim are extremely close. They both live in Dallas and play many of their practice rounds together. They’re so close Scheffler’s father went to the Byron Nelson, a tournament his son was not participating in, this year to root on Kim. And that relationship is probably best described as an older cousin always beating up on the younger cousin at family functions. Scheffler, an old 28, is a trash talker and a competitor, so Kim, a young 22, becomes his punching bag in their countless rounds together.
This spring, Scheffler brought Kim and Si Woo Kim to play his local club, Royal Oaks. They got to play Scheffler’s beloved wolf hammer betting game with Scheffler’s traditional crew of middle-aged members. Scheffler shot in the low 60s. Kim shot a 74 with no birdies. “They wore his ass out,” member Frank Voigt said. Scheffler’s coach Randy Smith said Scheffler didn’t stop reminding him of it, reaching the point that Kim came back to Royal Oaks without Scheffler to redeem himself.
“Scottie will let him get someplace, and then Scottie eliminates him,” Smith said. “Because Tom is such a cute kid. He’s so funny. But Scottie will kill him with facts.”
This is always their relationship, and they will likely always talk trash to each other. Scheffler even said after the round: “It’s the same thing I would do at home if we were playing wolf and he made his first putt of the day and celebrated like the match was over and we had a 2-up lead. It was kinda a nice moment there for us to keep them quiet. It was a fun match. That’s really all there is to it.”
After the long birdie putt on 8, Kim shouted so long he even stepped toward Scheffler a bit to make sure he heard him taunting him. Scheffler did not turn to engage. He just stared straight to prepare for his putt before the South Koreans walked to the next hole.
“To be fair to them walking off, I did like scream at them on the hole before,” Scheffler said with a laugh. “I’m not going to say it was their fault, you know what I mean?”
On 10, Scheffler made a tough 25-footer for birdie. Kim responded with his own 20-foot birdie to keep it within one. By then, the taunting was more tame. They celebrated their putts with restraint. Scheffler birdied 12 for another halved hole before playing partner Russell Henley hit two pin-hunting birdies for the duo to pull away and win by three shots, part of a 5-0 day for the United States.
This was ultimately just some good old-fashioned Presidents Cup fun, but there might be a greater takeaway to consider.
Three years ago, Scheffler broke onto the scene as the risky Ryder Cup captain’s pick who Steve Stricker boldly matched with then-world No. 1 Jon Rahm, and Scheffler faced him down for a 4 and 3 win. From there, he took the leap to stardom, winning the 2022 Masters, becoming world No. 1 himself and taking over as the best player in the game.
But the very quiet — and possibly unfair — trend since has been the U.S.’s top star didn’t win a match at the 2022 Presidents Cup or the 2023 Ryder Cup. He played quite poorly after an exhausting season in 2022, and he went 0-2-2 in Rome. It was such a small sample size, and it has been hinted that Scheffler was one of the many sick golfers in Rome. Stewart Cink was asked this week if there’s any comparison to Tiger Woods famously going only 13-21-3 in Ryder Cups, and he downplayed any similarity, saying Woods is such an idiosyncratic person and Scheffler is one of the goofiest, well-liked players in the locker room. Plus, Scheffler’s career is just beginning.
Maybe, though, just maybe, Thursday taught us that Scheffler is at his best when provoked. When he has something to cling on to. Scheffler the stroke play golfer needs to be zen and composed. He needs to block out the world and accept that each shot is just a result. All he can control is his next moment. But Scheffler the match play golfer? He might be at his best when being the no-name rookie staring down the goliath of Rahm or having Kim big-timing him Thursday at the Presidents Cup.
Because when you talk to any person who knows Scheffler, they paint the picture of a kind but relentless competitor. He’s the guy who plays pickleball matches two-on-one against Royal Oaks members, who mocks his competitors in those wolf hammer games and wants to destroy anyone at any sport. That muscle, that mindset, doesn’t suit him in stroke play.
It’s everything in match play. Like Tom Kim just found out.
— The Athletic’s Gabby Herzig contributed to this report.
(Top photo of Tom Kim, left, and Scottie Scheffler: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
