Weir adds Canadian trio of Conners, Pendrith and Hughes

After lots of thought and consideration, Mike Weir used half his captain’s picks to put his countryman on the International Team for the Presidents Cup. Now he hopes the trio can provide a home-country spark for the Montreal fans.

After lots of speculation and prognostication from both his captain’s assistants and the analytics team, as well as the voices of plenty of fans, Weir decided to add three Canadians to the team that will try to wrest the Presidents Cup from the Americans.

Corey Conners, Taylor Pendrith and Mackenzie Hughes will wear the International Team shield starting Sept. 23 at Royal Montreal GC. The three players, all of whom went to school together at Kent State University, mark the largest contingent of Canadians to play for a team in the biennial event. Weir called all three last Monday to inform them they were on the team.

Weir rounded out his selections with Australian Min Woo Lee, Christiaan Bezuidenhout from South Africa and South Korean Si Woo Kim. Conners, Lee, Bezuidenhout and Pendrith finished inside the top 12 in the rankings. Kim was 14th while Hughes finished in 15th spot.

“I think some guys had a sense of who was going to make it,” said Weir. “Their excitement, wanting to be a part of the team came out. Those were good calls to make, especially the Canadian guys, Corey and Mac and Taylor.”

Missing out from the players who were in the top 12 were Cam Davis of Australia, who was eighth, and Canadian Nick Taylor who was 12th. Also absent was another Canuck, Adam Hadwin, who ended up in 13th spot.

The first six automatic picks were Hideki Matsuyama, Sungjae Im, Adam Scott, Tom Kim, Jason Day and Ben An. All but Matsuyama were at Royal Montreal Monday and Tuesday for practice rounds and team bonding.

For Weir, calling Hadwin and Taylor to tell them they wouldn’t be playing was a gut-wrenching task. One that he had been dreading.

“I’ve heard from all the other captains that’s the most difficult thing you do and it certainly was,” Weir stated. “I didn’t sleep very well the last week. The last week has been very difficult. I had the utmost respect for Adam and Nick, and even more so now, the way they handled themselves. They’re great human beings and I think they understood.”

Conners, who was as close to a sure pick without being one, heads back to the Presidents Cup for the second time after suiting up for the International side in 2022. That experience will pale in comparison compared to this year’s event on home soil.

“To be able to play here in Canada and for someone I idolized growing up is going to be amazing,” he stated after teaming with Hughes in a foursomes round. “I’m really thrilled to be a part of the team.”

At 15th, Hughes was the lowest-ranked player to be named to the International team. He’d been hoping to make the team all season, saying playing for Weir and doing it in Canada would be a dream come true. After he failed to make it into the top 50 and advance to the second round of the FedEx Cup playoffs, he thought he may have lost his chance. But he earned his spot thanks to his exceptional short game, both on and around the greens. It ranks as one of the best on the PGA Tour and shined in the team’s analytics reports.

“Even when I got the call, I wasn’t sure what the news would be,” Hughes admitted. “I was kind of on eggshells for a few days. It was really tough. When I got the news, it was just pure elation and I’m just so excited to be on the team.”

Hughes will be one of two rookies on the International side – Min Woo Lee is the other – and during the two-day team session at Royal Montreal this week, the native of Dundas, Ont., was picking the brains of the veteran players about what to expect.

“I can see myself getting really involved emotionally and playing to the crowd quite a bit,” Hughes said. “The guys have told me the atmosphere is like nothing else we play and I can’t wait to experience it.”

Pendrith played the last Presidents Cup two years ago in Charlotte, N.C. He failed to win a point for his side which lost to the Americans 17.5 to 12.5, and said the boisterous American fans were definitely a factor. This time, he’s hoping the home-country crowd will provide an advantage for the Internationals.

“It’s going to be loud, it’s going to be crazy,” he said. “They’re going to be rooting for the Canadians and everyone else on the team who will be Canadians for the week.”

Weir is counting on the Montreal crowds too. He’s stated that when he played the Presidents Cup here 2007, the crowds were good but not as partisan as he hopes they will be this time around. One of the lone times they showed their support was in his singles match against Tiger Woods, which the left-hander won on the final hole.

Another advantage he’s hoping to use is the agronomy of Royal Montreal’s Blue Course. While he doesn’t have a say in course setup (the PGA Tour takes care of that), he can – and has – asked for certain changes to the layout. The fairways have been narrowed considerably and the rough is already closing in on the four inches in height at which Weir would like to see it.

These are just a few small ways in which Weir is hoping to gain a step up on the formidable Americans. Of the first six players named to that team, all are in the top 15 of the Official World Golf Ranking. That includes Scottie Scheffler, who won seven times this season not including his Olympic Gold medal, and Xander Schauffele, who captured two of the year’s four majors. The other four are Collin Morikawa, Sahith Theegala, Wyndham Clark and Patrick Cantlay.

Captain Jim Furyk also added more names on Tuesday, deciding to select the next six golfers on the U.S. team ranking. Tony Finau, Brian Harman, Max Homa, Russell Henley and Sam Burns were the additions. So was Keegan Bradley who previously was named as a captain’s assistant, a job awarded after he was named captain of next year’s American Ryder Cup side.

Furyk said Bradley will forgo most of his duties of assistant and focus on golf.

While the six players added on Tuesday are all solid and worthy of wearing the U.S. colours, there were some names that many had expected to be mentioned. Among those were Billy Horschel, who put on a season-ending kick with three top-10 performances in his last four tournaments, and perhaps young stud Nick Dunlap, who won twice on the PGA Tour, the first as an amateur.

But no omission was more intriguing than Justin Thomas, who was a controversial pick for last year’s Ryder Cup who then failed to deliver for captain Zach Johnson. Furyk avoided any sniff of the Old Boys’ club in making his picks straight off the card.

It will still be difficult for the International Team to knock off the Americans, something it hasn’t done since 1998. Weir and his team will start with high hopes and plenty of strategies. If he can lead his team to a win, he’ll have added another remarkable achievement to a list that already has many of them.