Presidents Cup: Internationals Lead US 10.5–7.5 as a Historic Reversal Awaits at the 18th

Late Saturday afternoon at the 18th hole of Medinah No. 3, just outside Chicago. The commentary booth was packed, the smell of wet grass after a light morning rain still hanging in the air. I had just set my headset down for a beat when I saw Scottie Scheffler — world number one, a four-time major champion — walk out of the afternoon match and sit down on the bench. No club. No glove. No expression.

In more than thirty years of standing between stages and stadium corridors, I have learned one thing: the silence of the strongest person often says more than any roar. "I hear a player's whole life in the crying from the stands," I often tell young people entering the MC trade. But this time it was silence, and silence is the hardest kind of data to read.

The scoreboard at that moment: the International Team led the United States 10.5–7.5. Only 12 Sunday singles matches remained. A scenario that had not happened in 26 years was slowly taking shape in front of me, one golf shot at a time.

Context: a tournament where borders are redrawn

The Presidents Cup is a biennial team event, bringing together the United States team and the International Team — a collection of golfers from everywhere in the world except Europe. If the Ryder Cup is a US–Europe war, the Presidents Cup is a contest between America and the rest of the planet: Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Argentina, Colombia, and more.

I have been present at many big events, from Olympic Games to the Japanese women's volleyball seasons I followed for years. But the Presidents Cup has one feature that always keeps me sitting longer after work: it is the only event where the definitions of "us" and "them" are completely inverted for a Vietnamese man living in Japan like me.

The International Team includes Japanese golfers — Hideki Matsuyama, one of the biggest names in Asian golf, and Ryo Hisatsune, a rising young talent. They are compatriots of the neighbours around me in Osaka. When Matsuyama stepped onto the tee, I heard cheering in Japanese from a small corner of the stands, mixed into the ocean of English from the American crowd. That feeling was strange — and exciting — in a way golf rarely gives me.

The Presidents Cup format is fairly clear: the first three days are played in pairs, with four-ball (each player plays their own ball; the better score of the pair counts) and foursomes (alternate shot with one ball). The final day is 12 singles matches. Each win is worth one point. With 30 points in total, the first team to reach 15.5 wins. Before Sunday, the Internationals had 10.5 points and the US had 7.5.

Historically, the US had won 10 straight Presidents Cups. The Internationals' last outright win was in 2026. On foreign soil — that is, when the US is not playing at home — the Internationals had never led going into the final singles day. Until this Saturday afternoon.

Medinah No. 3 sits near Chicago, a classic American parkland course, the site of the historic 2026 Ryder Cup comeback. The course does not favour one type of golfer: it demands balance between precision and length, between wind management and green reading. A neutral but brutal course — the kind where home advantage is not as large as people think.

Corey Conners, the Canadian golfer, told the media afterwards: "We gave them a few holes early on... both motivated to try to get back on the right side." The tone was calm, but behind it lies self-awareness that his team is leaking strokes in the opening holes.

The points math is not small

A key number to restate: the Internationals need five of the 12 singles points to reach 15.5 and win. The US needs 7.5 of 12. The gap between these two tasks is far larger than it appears.

In percentage terms, the Internationals must win 41.7% of the remaining singles matches. The US must win 62.5%. In a format where every match is a head-to-head one-on-one, a 20-percentage-point difference in the obligation to win is no small thing. It means the Internationals can win five and lose seven of the 12 and still lift the cup. The US must win eight, or win seven and halve one.

This matters because it shapes the psychological tactics of both teams. The US must play to win. The Internationals can play not to lose. The difference between these two postures, at the elite level, is often larger than the difference in skill.

I have seen this pattern across many sports. In volleyball, a team leading 2-0 forces the opponent to win three straight sets — technically not much different, but psychologically completely reversed. In athletics, a runner in the heats can hold back while rivals must go all out. Psychological freedom is an underrated technical advantage, and in this Presidents Cup, I believe it tilts toward the Internationals more than individual rankings suggest.

There is another detail worth noting: the Saturday afternoon foursomes split 2-2. To those unfamiliar with golf, this may just be a neutral number. But foursomes is the harshest of all team formats. Two players, one ball, alternate shots. One bad shot by one player pushes the other into a difficult position. This format tolerates no gap in ability within the pair, no lack of chemistry, and no mismatch in preferred ball position.

When a team halves this format against a side that is stronger on paper, that is not luck. That is pairing chemistry — a skill that Presidents Cup captains work on for months, not hours. A well-complemented pair can beat two individually better players who do not fit.

Snedeker's decision and its price

US captain Brandt Snedeker rested Scheffler for Saturday afternoon. The decision caused major surprise in analysis circles, and even the writer admitted its unexpected nature.

Snedeker explained: Scheffler needed "much needed rest so he can go out there tomorrow and be the Scottie Scheffler we know."

I sat with that quote for a long time. The phrasing carries a meaning buried deep. "Be the Scottie Scheffler we know" — that is, the US captain is admitting that the current Scheffler is not quite himself. Four-time major champion, world number one, yet in team golf this player has a less-than-impressive record.

This is the most fascinating contradiction in the whole story for me, and it is also why I recall "In Moscow I shouted so much that people thought I was a reporter" — what I wrote about the 2026 World Cup. That year I learned that intuition is sometimes stronger than data, but data still needs cross-checking before writing.

The same applies here. Scheffler's individual résumé is as emphatic as a verdict: four majors, the number one ranking. But his team record — often overlooked because the eye is blinded by individual medals — tells a different story.

There is a strange gap between individual and team golf. In many other sports that gap exists too, but golf is where it shows most clearly, because golf is fundamentally a lonely sport — you, your club, your ball, your head. Step into the Presidents Cup and you are placed inside a collective that must resonate, and not everyone can do that.

Scheffler is still the man trusted for Sunday. But the decision to rest him means: the US knows it cannot rely solely on its number one star to complete the comeback. Snedeker is trying to "take some of the pressure off" Scheffler — as his own interpretation suggests.

The irony is that the more they try to reduce pressure on Scheffler, the more the US highlights its dependence on a golfer with a team-play psychological issue. This is a paradox I do not think the US can solve with rest alone. If Scheffler's problem is physical, one afternoon off is enough. If his problem is team-play psychology, one afternoon off changes nothing.

The Internationals' rise is not luck

In the morning, the Internationals led 7-3 before the US cut the margin "down to three points." That is a warning: the Internationals have a burst, but cannot sustain it throughout.

But the pair of Nick Taylor and Corey Conners showed me the opposite. They were three down through the 10th, then turned it around to win 1-up. This is not pure technique. This is nerve. This is the ability to keep breathing when the scoreboard is against you.

Meanwhile, Scheffler and Burns — the match considered the "easiest" of the afternoon for the US — won by taking each of the final three holes to close 2-and-1. The US also has nerve. The problem is: the US has nerve in pairs matches. Sunday is singles — a completely different format.

"On the day the stadium is empty, I understand why I run without tiring" — I wrote that about training alone in an Osaka stadium. But it applies equally to golfers before a decisive singles match: the silence of the course, the silence of 12 matches running in parallel, and the feeling that you cannot hide behind anyone, not even a teammate.

The Taylor/Conners pair have proven that the Internationals can withstand pressure on the closing holes. That is a signal that the history of 10 straight losses for the Internationals does not reflect. If you only look at the historical record, you will miss this Canadian pair. And that is exactly why I believe this Presidents Cup is different from the previous 10.

The contrarian angle: a blind spot in how the match is read

Here I want to return to what I consider a "blind spot" in the conventional reading of the Presidents Cup.

The conventional reading: the US has a deeper roster, higher individual rankings, and has won 10 straight. So they remain the favourites, despite trailing. Conclusion: the US will reverse the situation on Sunday, as always.

I am not sure I agree with that reading.

"Insider" — in my event-hosting career, I learned that insiders always see what the public cannot: where the real pressure lies. And in this case, the pressure is not on the Internationals. The pressure is on the US, because they are the side that has won 10 in a row — meaning they have more to lose.

I want to state clearly something I believe to be true, even if it runs against common intuition: a historical advantage of 10 straight wins does not automatically translate into a Sunday advantage. On the contrary, it can translate into a burden. Every US golfer stepping into a Sunday singles match is not just fighting their opponent, but also the memory of ten previous Presidents Cups — and the fear that they might be the one to break the streak.

This is what I think sports media often overlooks when analysing the Presidents Cup. They talk about rosters, points, history. They rarely talk about psychology. But the Presidents Cup is one of the most psychologically dense sports events on the planet — because it combines a team format (where you cannot take individual responsibility) with an individual format (where you are alone).

There is a beautiful paradox here. In foursomes, two players perform better than the sum of two individuals, because they complement each other. In singles, each man plays exactly as himself, and there is nothing to hide behind.

The Internationals, as the "weaker" team on paper, have a strange psychological advantage I have seen many times in team sports: the right to "play free." They have no ten straight titles to defend. They have no world number one to carry. They have one Canadian, and another Canadian who was three down and still turned it around. That is psychological capital.

And the US has a star suspected of team-play weakness, sitting out Saturday afternoon for "much-needed rest."

Nothing is certain at the Presidents Cup. But I believe anyone reading this match purely by individual rankings will miss the most important moment of the whole tournament. "Technical barriers cannot stop emotion; they only make it accumulate" — I repeat this every time I host a big event. At Medinah this Sunday, the US's technical barrier is bottling up the Internationals' emotion, and when it finally bursts, the US will not have time to react.

One more structural point worth noting: the Presidents Cup awards no OWGR points for team match results. This means players mostly compete for national pride and personal reputation, not ranking. Sports history shows that when the reward is material, strong teams tend to win; when the reward is spiritual, weaker teams tend to outperform expectations. This is a signal that favours the Internationals.

Takeaway

12 singles matches. 12 individuals stepping out alone. The Internationals need five points, the US needs 7.5.

I will sit in front of a screen in Osaka on Sunday evening, a cup of coffee in hand, one earbud in. I will watch Scheffler's first hole — not because I care whether he wins or loses, but because I want to know whether "much-needed rest" truly produces a different Scottie Scheffler, or is just a polite way of describing a deeper problem that both he and his captain know but do not want to voice.

I will watch whether the Canadian pair keep the nerve that let them turn things around on Saturday. And I will wonder whether 26 years means anything in a sport where each shot lasts a few seconds.

For a Vietnamese man living in Japan, watching an International Team with Matsuyama and Hisatsune face an all-star US side is a strange moment. Borders in sport blur faster than borders in daily life. And the Presidents Cup, though only golf, is showing me something I have always believed: no team wins forever. There are only moments when one person decides not to give in.