Tom Kim encourages the crowd at the Presidents Cup to be heard on Thursday afternoon.
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Another day in the 2024 Presidents Cup and the tournament has not quite lived up to expectations. For the players, the crowd has also not reached what was expected.
After a quiet day in which the American team won all five games, many players of the international team said they thought the home crowd could wake them up in Royal Montreal.
Canadian-born Taylor Pendrith was the first to say it during a post-round interview. He was asked to describe the incident on the 1st tee, and while he said he enjoyed it, he needs more going forward. “Hearing the love from the home crowd in Canada was really neat,” Pendrith said. “We have to speak a lot, I think, in the next few days here and really feel the support at home.”
As can happen in shared interview settings, when one player breaks the dam on a particular idea, the others feel free to agree and even expand on their idea. Tom Kim, sitting next to Pendrith in the newsroom, followed his lead.
“Like Taylor said, I think it was pretty quiet today at home,” Kim said. “I don’t think the fans were really — I wish they could have helped us a lot, especially being in Canada. I know how much they love golf. I definitely expect the crowd to shout loudly and be on our side.”
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It was Kim who led the hottest game of the afternoon, trading birdies with Scottie Scheffler, bordering on the rules of golf, to lose 3 and 2. He said his version of fun golf and his subsequent reaction is his way of bringing energy to his teammates.
“I’m not just fighting for myself,” said Kim. “It might look like I’m just a kid throwing fist pumps, but I’m not, I’m the one throwing fist pumps at my team.”
To their credit, Pendrith and Kim kept their bargain. DataGolf ranked them as the top two players from the international side. But that’s part of the hype equation for these team events. Golf needs to be fun, and fans need to respond. NBC anchor and team event director John Wood agreed with Kim’s take.
“Couldn’t agree more,” Wood tweeted Thursday night. “When the US plays in Australia/Europe, Europe in the US, Int in the US, the crowd with the team makes it difficult to play the away team and that’s how it should be! It adds so much to the event. I didn’t hear that today at Royal Montreal. Resources to [Tom Kim] to speak.”
Thursday can be tough for golf fans. The weekend isn’t here yet, and there’s a lot of golf to come. You wouldn’t blame anyone for ending their work week before heading to Royal Montreal to play golf. But therein lies another inspiration behind Pendrith and Kim’s quotes. The Internationals lost 5-0 on Thursday, meaning the Americans need just 10.5 points in 25 games to win the trophy. If the Internationals are going to get their money back, they will need some help from the home crowd. It all starts with five fourball matches on Friday afternoon.
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