U.S. Takes 3-2 Presidents Cup Lead
Scottie Scheffler was already in the greenside bunker on the eighteenth hole at Medinah Country Club in Illinois. His partner, Sam Burns, had found the sand on the opposite side of the same green. Their fourball match—each man playing his own ball, the better score on the hole counting for the side—had gone the full distance. The Americans held a 1-up lead after both Internationals missed par putts on the seventeenth, and the point now rested on the last green.
Scheffler played out of the bunker and left the ball a foot from the cup, close enough for a tap-in. The par secured the hole. Im still had one stroke that could change the result. From roughly forty feet he faced a birdie putt that would have halved the match and split the point. He missed it. Scheffler and Burns beat Lee and Im 1 up, the only fourball of the day to go that far.
It was their first win together, on the fifth try. Four earlier pairings in the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup had left them 0-3-1.
Scheffler had opened the match with a fifteen-foot birdie on the first hole and put the Americans 1 up. Lee answered on the second by sinking a fifty-foot birdie. The scoring stayed brisk from both sides. Im tied the match with a birdie on the fifth after the Internationals had been trailing, and neither pairing could turn that early run into a lasting lead.
Im gave the Internationals their first lead of the day with a birdie on the thirteenth. Burns squared it at once. On the fourteenth he hit his approach to two feet, and the birdie brought the match back to all square.
“Sam hit probably the shot of the match there on 14,” Scheffler said. “We lost 13 to go one down and then he hit one in there to a couple feet. I felt like that was really a big moment for us as a team, and he stepped up when we needed him to.” He added, “We did our best to stay in it. Both teams got off to pretty hot starts today and we cooled off after that a little bit.”
Justin Thomas and twenty-one-year-old rookie Jackson Koivun put the first point on the board for the United States. Against Corey Conners and Nico Echavarria in fourball, both sides opened with pars on the first two holes. Koivun birdied the third to put the Americans one up. He birdied the sixth as well. Thomas and Koivun never relinquished the lead. They carried it onto the back nine without letting the Internationals close the gap.
Thomas birdied the fourteenth and the fifteenth. Those consecutive birdies extended the lead to four holes with three still to play. Conners and Echavarria conceded the fifteenth hole. Thomas and Koivun won 4 and 3. The victory extended Thomas’s unbeaten record in Presidents Cup fourballs to 7-0-0.
“It was fun to be out there with Jackson and watch him do his thing. He's really impressive to watch, and I'm really happy he's on my team,” Thomas said.
Hideki Matsuyama and Ryo Hisatsune faced Cameron Young and Xander Schauffele in the second fourball. The pairing was the first all-Japanese side in the Presidents Cup since 1998. They took the match 3 and 1. Matsuyama had waited years for a countryman beside him.
“It's been a long time. I've been waiting for another guy from Japan to come play with me, and I was really happy today,” Matsuyama said.
Wyndham Clark and Collin Morikawa beat Ryan Fox and Adam Scott 3 and 2. Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim beat Chris Gotterup and Patrick Cantlay 3 and 2.
Five fourball matches were played on September 24, 2026, at Medinah. The United States held a 3-2 lead over the International team after Thursday’s fourballs. The Americans had taken the opening session for the ninth time in the last ten Presidents Cups and opened their bid for an eleventh consecutive title.
“A session win is a session win; we're going to take it any way we can get it,” United States captain Brandt Snedeker said. “I saw those guys competing their asses off out there. I'm really proud of them. A session win is a session win - we're going to take it any way we can get it. So happy for Scottie and Sam to go out there in that lead match and get that big win for us to lead us off. This is a long week and this is one session. We've got four more to go, but just proud of the way these guys started us off.”
“I saw a lot of good golf out there,” International captain Geoff Ogilvy said. “We had a couple of really good solid matches there and we had a match go up to 18, which would have been nice if it went the other way, but we'll take that (3-2).”
“Two-to-three their way is not too bad,” Ogilvy said. “We had a couple of really good, solid matches there, and we had a match go up to 18, which would have been nice if it went the other way. But 2-3, we'll take that. The boys have got a round under their belt now.”
The Presidents Cup is a biennial series of men’s golf matches between a United States side and an International Team drawn from the rest of the world except Europe. It runs thirty matches over four days in match play, with twelve players on each side. Every match is worth one point, a halved match awarding half a point to each team, and the first side to reach 15.5 points wins the Cup. Five foursomes matches were set for Friday at Medinah Country Club. In foursomes the partners share one ball and strike it in turn, the format known as alternate shot.
