Get ready for the most Canadian Presidents Cup ever

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Canada is set to put its stamp on one of golf’s top “best-on-best” competitions as the Presidents Cup tees off Thursday at Royal Montreal.

Like the Ryder Cup and the women’s Solheim Cup, this event pits the United States against another international entity in a series of pairs and singles matches played over several days. The main difference is that while those other two events are the U.S. vs. Europe, the Presidents Cup sees a team of American men take on a more patchwork International squad of golfers from anywhere else in the world except Europe.

By pretty much any measure (popularity, prestige, history, competitiveness — you name it) the Presidents Cup pales in comparison to the Ryder Cup. But the Presidents is the one Canadians are allowed to compete in, and this edition is infused with quite a bit more maple flavour than usual.

With one of the country’s oldest clubs playing host, three Canadians (the most ever at a single Presidents Cup) will play for the International team. And, for the first time, that team is captained by a Canadian — Mike Weir, whose 2003 Masters victory remains the greatest moment in Canadian golf history (sorry, Nick Taylor). 

Here’s what else to know:

The format is sort of a super-sized Ryder Cup.

Whereas the Ryder Cup takes place over three days, the Presidents goes for four. There’s an extra day of pairs matches before the closing singles contests on Sunday. 

In Thursday’s “four-ball” matches, both guys in each pairing play their own ball, and the team uses the better score on each hole. In Friday’s “foursomes,” also known as alternate shot, teammates take turns playing the same ball. Saturday is a mix of four-ball and foursomes. On Sunday, all 12 players on each team square off for individual matches. 

Every contest, whether pairs or singles, is match play. That means whichever side shoots the better score on each hole wins that hole, no matter how many strokes are taken. Whoever wins the most holes wins the match. If tied after 18 holes, the match ends as a draw and both teams get half a point.

A total of 30 matches will be played over the four days, so 15½ points wins the Cup. In the event of a 15-15 tie, the teams share the Cup. This differs from the Ryder Cup, where a draw results in the reigning champion retaining the trophy.

Weir picked three Canadians buddies for his International team.

As the (non-playing) captain, the 54-year-old from Brights Grove, Ont., got to choose any six players he wanted to join the six who qualified through a season-long points system. Weir used half of his picks on Canadians, taking Taylor Pendrith, Corey Conners and Mackenzie Hughes. All around the same age, they competed against each other on the Ontario junior circuit before playing on the same university team at Kent State.

B.C.’s Adam Hadwin and Nick Taylor — another set of Canadian pals who grew up golfing together — were also under consideration but didn’t make it.

WATCH l Weir selects 3 Canadians as Presidents Cup captain’s picks:

Hopefully chemistry matters, because on paper this looks like a huge mismatch.

Along with his three Canadians, Weir selected South Africa’s Christiaan Bezuidenhout, South Korea’s Si Woo Kim and Australia’s Min Woo Lee to join the six International qualifiers: Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama, Australians Adam Scott and Jason Day, and Koreans Sungjae Im, Tom Kim and Byeong Hun.

Matsuyama, the 2021 Masters champ, is ranked seventh in the world. But no one else on the International team is even close to the top 10. Scott, who’s 44 years old, is the nearest at No. 18, while everyone else falls between the 21st-ranked Im and the 61st-ranked Hughes.

Now let’s look at the Americans. Captain Jim Furyk’s team features the two best players in the world in Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele, and five of the top nine. The other qualifiers are Collin Morikawa (ranked No. 4), Wyndham Clark (6), Patrick Cantlay (9) and Sahith Theegala (11). Furyk added Keegan Bradley (13), Russell Henley (14), Sam Burns (19), Brian Harman (22), Tony Finau (23) and Max Homa (25). The lineup could have been even stronger, but 10th-ranked U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau is not eligible because he plays on the LIV tour (the Presidents Cup is run by the rival PGA Tour).

The current betting odds imply that this stacked U.S. roster has about a 66 per cent chance of winning the Cup. The Internationals have around a 27 per cent chance, while the likelihood of a tie is roughly 6 per cent.

History is not on the Internationals’ side either.

The Americans have thoroughly dominated the Presidents Cup, winning nine in a row and going 12-1-1 all-time. The Internationals’ only victory came in 1998 in Australia when Japan’s Shigeki Maruyama went a surprising 5-0-0 and Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Greg Norman also helped their team beat a U.S. squad that included Furyk (1-3-0), Phil Mickelson (0-2-2) and Tiger Woods (2-3-0).

Conners, though, believes his team has a real shot. “We’ve got a good plan in place,” the Canadian said after Tuesday’s practice round. “We can definitely do it.” Read more about that plan here.