MEDINAH, Ill. — The credit, if we indeed think of the endeavor as a success, belongs to Fred Couples. As an influential assistant to captain Tiger Woods at the 2019 Presidents Cup in Australia, Couples had a pairing against the Internationals that he loved and wasn’t shy about bending Woods’ ear about it.
It didn’t matter that Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay were both rookies on that U.S. squad, and putting newbies together in a charged atmosphere on foreign soil was just not something that past captains favored.
But Couples had spent a lot of time playing money matches at Newport Beach Country Club with the two up-and-coming, native Southern Californians.
“Freddie is like, ’hey, I think these two guys would be unbelievable together.’ That’s what he said,” Schauffele recalled. “The way they play, they almost turn into one person when they're playing alternate shot, which is all you can sort of ask for. And then just the way we interact.
“Holding each other accountable, but knowing that each of us are trying our absolute hardest on every shot. Just having each other's back. Freddie sort of orchestrated that, and he was right.”
Ben Jared
There is a ying and yang to their personalities—Schauffele is far more outgoing and loquacious when he’s comfortable, while Cantlay is loath to say much publicly and can seem rather glum in even the best of circumstances. But they have jelled in golf and life, and their trust and comfort has shown up frequently in team events—even if using the duo has been a work in progress.
Heading into the start of the 16th Presidents Cup on Thursday at Medinah, Schauffele and Cantlay have played together a whopping 15 times in a combined six international competitions—three Presidents Cups and three Ryder Cups—and their joint record is a decent 8-7. That includes a 5-4 record in the Presidents Cup, while they’re 3-3 in the Ryder Cup.
Clocking in at just over .500 is rarely considered impressive, but team golf is a different animal—dependent on conditions and mindset—and the two have certainly been workmanlike. Consider that in the relative short history of the Presidents Cup, Schauffele and Cantlay’s combined five points is a half-point shy of the top-scoring American duo of Couples and Davis Love III.
What the players and captains have discovered over the last seven years about this pair is when and how to play them together. To wit: They are 6-3 in foursomes and 1-3 in fourball.
A trend developed early on when the duo won both of their foursomes matches and lost both fourballs in Melbourne.
Two years later in the COVID-delayed Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits, they came through big again with two foursomes wins, including a rousing rout of Rory McIlroy and Ian Poulter in the event’s very first match. Then captain Steve Stricker split them up for the first time in fourball, with Schauffele winning and Cantlay losing.
The sentiment seemingly became they were simply more cohesive in alternate shot, and after losing to Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim in the 2022 Presidents Cup Saturday best ball, Schauffele and Cantlay haven’t been together in fourball since.
Predictably, this week’s U.S. captain, Brandt Snedeker, did not put them together for Thursday’s fourball here. Schauffele will play with Cam Young in Match 2 against Ryo Hisatsune and Hideki Matsuyama, while Cantlay and Chris Gotterup draw the anchor match vs. Si Woo Kim and Tom Kim.
Conversely, it would be a shock to not see Schauffele and Cantlay together for Friday’s alternate shot.
On Wednesday, Schauffele, who is an impressive 17-9 in all Cups. mostly brushed off all of the records as a small sample size, and he added with a grin that he and Cantlay have played pretty well together in best-ball on occasion—like when they opened the 2022 Zurich Classic with a 13-under 59 en route to a wire-to-wire win.
“So we've done it,” Schauffele said. “We just have gotten beat in fourball and haven't produced the greatest scores.
“So, if we played 100 fourball rounds, which we're not going to live to see, who knows what our record would be?” he said. “But there's probably better matchups as the stats guys would say. Even though we're friends, there's to better matchups to sort of complement the holes that we have in our games.”
To his point, a year ago in the Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in the Americans’ crushing loss, Schauffele-Cantlay went 1-1 together in foursomes, and Schauffele won again in fourball with J.J. Spaun.
Michael Reaves
If this week's captains, Snedeker and Geoff Ogivly, get the matchups right for Friday, a rematch between Schauffele-Cantlay and the Kims would be fantastic. In Montreal, the four produced one of the best matches in Presidents Cup history when they met in the last group on Saturday and battled into the gloaming before Cantlay made a 19-foot birdie for the 1-up win. The entire American team stormed the green amid camera flashes as they closed out a 6-2 Saturday on their way to winning 18½-11½.
Understand, too, that in a rare foursomes hiccup, Schauffele-Cantlay sought vengeance after they were smoked 7 and 6 by Hideki Matsuyama and Sungjae Im on Friday as the International pair combined to make eight birdies in 12 holes. That can happen in match play.
“We wanted to win that match pretty bad. Man, did it feel good when P.C. made that putt there in the dark,” Schauffele said in the immediate aftermath of the Saturday triumph.
On Wednesday at Medinah, Cantlay, with a combined record of 16-9-2 in the Cups, smiled at the recollection and said, "Yeah, it's definitely up there as one of the most memorable. Especially just being the last match on the course and I think the Cup was relatively close at that time. So I knew going to bed on Saturday night, we would all sleep a little easier with a win. It just gave us that momentum going into Sunday.”
Of course, the two guys play together frequently while they’re home in Florida, and that victory still comes up on occasion. Especially when it’s getting late and the sun begins to dip.
“I always tell P.C., if it's getting dark at home and we're going to finish somewhere close to dark, the match is off,” Schauffele said. “You know what I mean? I don't like playing Pat when it gets kind of dark. He has a knack for making these putts in the dark in these team events.”
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