It was strange seeing Scottie Scheffler on the first tee Saturday afternoon at the Presidents Cup — because his shirt was untucked, he’d cracked open a bag of chips and was laughing off to the side with a group of U.S. family members and support staff.
It must have been strange for Scheffler, too. That’s because, for the first time in three years, he was sitting out a session in U.S. team competition.
With the Internationals leading the U.S. team 8.5-5.5 heading into Saturday afternoon’s foursomes sessions, captain Brandt Snedeker put out a lineup that he said included “a couple wrinkles.” One of those was splitting up the Scheffler-Sam Burns pairing, which went 2-1 over the first three sessions.
“I feel like Scottie’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders, carrying Team USA, and it’s time for us to carry him for a session,” Snedeker told NBC’s Cara Banks.
How hard was it to decide to sit the World No. 1?
“It was tough, that’s probably why my head is still spinning,” Snedeker added. “Those matchups came up pretty quick. We tried our best to get these guys in a good situation and — I love Scottie Scheffler to death, it was a really tough decision to sit him this afternoon, but I want him to get some rest, I want him to get ready to go tomorrow for these singles matches.”
The timing around the decision added several layers of intrigue. Because the two Saturday sessions run back-to-back, Snedeker made his decision with several holes left in the anchor match, where Scheffler and Burns were trailing through 14 holes. Could Scheffler’s birdie putt at No. 15 have swayed his decision? Would Snedeker have made the same call had he seen Burns birdie 16 and 17 to win the match 2 and 1? It’s tough to say.
That timing also meant that Scheffler likely didn’t know about his captain’s decision until his post-win interview with Banks. He kept a smile on regardless of how he felt.
“Our team is a great team, and I’m looking forward to going out and supporting the guys,” he said. “Yeah, it’ll be fun this afternoon, and cheer them on, get a little rest.”
The move was shocking just because of Scheffler’s stature in the game; he’s the unquestioned best player at the event and the most dominant World No. 1 since Tiger Woods. He played all five sessions at both the 2024 Presidents Cup and 2025 Ryder Cup.
Still, Scheffler’s foursomes record has been mystifying. After he and Burns lost a tight match on Friday, he slipped to 1-8-0 across the Ryder and Presidents Cups in the alternate-shot format. And strokes-gained statistics have told a mixed story about Scheffler’s contributions thus far this week, with Burns’ numbers stronger across the board.
Scheffler stayed positive in additional comments to assembled media.
“Yeah, we’re always prepared for anything. I’ve played a lot of golf this year. I’ll just sit there and cheer the boys on. Looking forward to watching Sam, he’s one of my favorite people to watch. And get some rest and get ready for tomorrow,” he said.
“I think one of the great things about our team is you can pair guys with anybody. It’s important to get guys out on the course and guys that are playing well, and looking forward to going out and supporting the guys this afternoon.”
Three U.S. players — Burns, Wyndham Clark and Cameron Young — will go all five sessions. Scheffler will sit Saturday afternoon, alongside Justin Thomas, Jackson Koivun and Collin Morikawa.
The International side is leaning on its top stars; five players will go all five sessions (Si Woo Kim, Tom Kim, Sungjae Im, Min Woo Lee and Corey Conners) while two players will play just twice (Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Nico Echavarria).
Early on, the strategy seemed successful: the U.S. team jumped out to leads in all four afternoon matches. But as the session went on, two of those leads vanished — including that of Burns and Wyndham Clark in the anchor match. The teams split the session, 2-2, and the International side leads 10.5-7.5 heading to Sunday’s singles matches.
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Update: Snedeker addressed Scheffler’s benching in his post-round press conference, confirmed that he found out about the decision on TV and said that he “took it great.”
“Scottie is a team guy. He wants whatever is best for this team. He’d run through a wall for all those guys in that room. He took it like a champ,” Snedeker said. “I told him to get some rest, get some treatment, be out there. I feel like sometimes in years past we’ve kind of run him into the ground. So get out there tomorrow and kind of get after it.”
He added this:
“It’s obviously a tough decision, really hard decision to sit the best player in the world and probably one of the best players I’ve ever seen in person. I just want to put him in the best situation tomorrow to go out there and have a great day and get some rest.”
You can see individual records through four sessions below.
U.S. Team (7.5 points)
Scottie Scheffler 2-1
Chris Gotterup 2-1
Cameron Young 2-2
Sam Burns 2-2
Jackson Koivun 1-0-1
Justin Thomas 1-1-1
Collin Morikawa 1-2
Patrick Cantlay 1-2
Xander Schauffele 1-2
Wyndham Clark 1-3
Russell Henley 0-2
Jacob Bridgeman 0-2
International Team (10.5 points)
Tom Kim 3-1
Si Woo Kim 3-1
Min Woo Lee 2-1-1
Hideki Matsuyama 2-1
Nick Taylor 2-1
Ryan Fox 2-1
Corey Conners 2-2
Christiaan Bezuidenhout 1-0
Sungjae Im 1-2-1
Adam Scott 1-2
Ryo Hisatsune 1-1
Nico Echavarria 0-1
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