MONTREAL — Scottie Scheffler showed his trash-talking side that is legendary in Dallas circles and illustrates the ultra-competitive nature of golf’s No. 1 player.
Tom Kim expected no less.
The Presidents Cup turned spicy on Thursday when the 22-year-old Kim took his celebrations to another level after he buried a birdie putt from just inside 30 feet on the par-3 seventh hole. He did a pirouette and shouted, “Let’s go!”
Scheffler responded by matching his birdie with a putt from about the same length, turning toward Kim and shouting with equal passion, “What was that?”
And it was feisty over the next two holes, especially when Kim made another birdie and walked over to the ninth tee box — some 50 yards away — even as Scheffler still had a 15-foot putt to tie the hole (he missed).
“Looked like he poked the bear, from my perspective,” said Scheffler, who won the Olympic gold medal while paired with Kim and beat Kim in a playoff at the Travelers Championship.
Maybe it was a coincidence, but Kim and Sungjae Im didn’t win another hole the rest of the way as Scheffler and Russell Henley closed out a 3-and-2 victory on a day the Americans swept the fourballs session for a 5-0 lead.
“Just he was being himself. That’s how we play back at home, and I knew it was going to happen,” Kim said. “It’s all fun. I made it on top of him, and he gave it to me, and I gave it to him back on the next hole. I don’t shy away from him. He’s a good friend. But at the same time, this week I don’t like him. I want to beat him so bad, and I’m sure he feels the same way.”
They are friends. That much was evident when Scheffler wrapped his arms around an emotional Kim on the final hole of the Olympics to console him.
Scheffler was competing — and winning — against a 60-man field. Match play is personal, and this looked every bit of it in a match that gave an otherwise flat day at Royal Montreal a little bit of flavor.
“We were 2 up in the match and he made a putt on 7, had a big reaction, and I made a big putt, as well,” Scheffler said. “So it was important for me to make sure that we kept the momentum in the match. And then I guess he made a big putt on 8 and they walked off the green to the tee or something like that.”
Scheffler said he saw video of Kim “yelling at me” but he didn’t notice that.
“I just kind of played,” Scheffler said.
Kim made his Presidents Cup debut in 2022 as a 20-year-old and turned out to be the emotional spark for the Internationals, most notably when he slammed his hat to the ground after making a winning putt in fourballs match against Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele.
As for leaving the eighth green while his opponents still had a putt, Kim brushed that off.
“I made a putt, and whether he made it or not wasn’t going to make a difference,” Kim said. “There was no reason to stay there and look at him putt. It doesn’t help us at all. It wasn’t trying to be cheap or do anything like that. We were focused on our own game.”
Scheffler shrugged it off, just like he does with everything else.
“It’s fun to compete and fun to represent our country, and at the end of the match you take your hat off and shake hands,” he said. “We’re friends after, we’re not friends during, I guess.”