In a city that has experienced its fair share of coaching flops, U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker was already falling on his sword Saturday at Medinah.
Mind you, Snedeker’s team has not been defeated in this Presidents Cup; they trail Geoff Ogilvy’s International squad by three points entering Sunday singles, where a dozen points remain up for grabs. But considering the U.S., a day after being swept in foursomes, painted the leaderboard completely red during both Saturday sessions yet only trimmed its deficit by one point, Snedeker couldn’t help but feel himself the man responsible for this deflating performance that has his team on the cusp of becoming the first American squad to ever lose this event at home.
“So proud of how they’ve kind of hung in there this week despite all of my mistakes,” Snedeker told NBC’s Cara Banks on Saturday evening, moments after the Internationals clawed back for a 2-2 draw in foursomes to take a lead into the final session for the first time ever on U.S. soil.
Snedeker was later asked in Medinah’s interview room to elaborate on those perceived blunders.
While vague, Snedeker’s answer revealed that he believes teams reflect their captain, and that the Americans’ subpar play could only stem from subpar captaining, even if Snedeker has not hit a single shot this week.
“I tried to work my tail off to put these guys in the best situation possible, and I don’t think I’ve done a very good job this week to be where we are right now,” Snedeker said. “They look to me to put them in the best position where they’re comfortable. I hold myself to a high standard. I don’t think I’ve done the best job for them in that room. They’ve given me everything I could possibly ask for, and I’ve just got to figure out ways to get these guys in better situations. I don’t think I’ve held up my end of the bargain. … I mean, there’s several different ways, whether it’s through matchups, whether it’s through whatever. There’s a thousand different ways I can think of right now.
“I’ve been honestly second guessing myself a lot to be in this situation.”
Has the soft-spoken Snedeker failed to command the team room? Unlike a few years ago in Rome, no reports of such strife have surfaced.
Does he regret any of the his captain’s picks? Rookie Jacob Bridgeman is the only one of six American wild-cards without a point.
Reading between the many lines of coach-speak (yes, there’s been a ton of it!), Snedeker seems most regretful for not pairing Chris Gotterup and Cameron Young sooner. The two Met Section products practiced all three days together, but after U.S. stalwart Justin Thomas turned back the clock in Thursday fourballs, Snedeker opted to ride the hot hand. The most logical place to insert Thomas into the Friday foursomes order, in Snedeker’s mind, was in place of Gotterup, who, to be fair, did struggle on the first day.
Thomas and Young lost to Adam Scott and Christiaan Bezuidenhout, the latter of whom ended up a one-session guy for Ogilvy.
On Saturday, Gotterup and Young teamed to earn two convincing points, including a 6-and-4 drubbing of Scott and Sungjae Im.
“It was kind of a pairing we had circled early on in this process of kind of putting those two guys together in alternate shot,” Snedeker said. “They went out there today and played fantastic. … I’m glad we found that pairing.”
He was just late to the punch with it.
“I think Friday just got jumbled up a little bit,” Young said. “That’s kind of the way it went. We were both looking forward to the pairing.”
There have been other perplexing decisions by Snedeker as well, including several on Saturday:
Trotting Bridgeman and Russell Henley back out for foursomes despite an uninspiring, two-birdie effort from the pair on Friday.
Benching world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler in the afternoon.
And somehow blanking on Young’s name in his NBC interview on the first tee as the foursomes matches were getting underway.
Snedeker: “We threw a couple wrinkles in there, obviously going with C.G., um, and, um, sorry my heads spinning a little bit right now. Going with C.G. and…”
Banks: “Cameron Young.”
Snedeker: “Cameron Young. Thank you very much.”
Henley and Bridgeman won each of their first three holes against Corey Conners and Nick Taylor. They led by the same margin with eight to play. But then the wheels fell off; Henley missed a 4-footer on No. 14 and dumped a pitch shot in the bunker at No. 15 to flip the match in favor of the Canadians, who’d come away with a 1-up win.
Asked to defend that decision, Snedeker appeared incredulous: “I mean, good Lord, guys. Sixth player in the world and Jacob Bridgeman; those guys are studs.”
Then there was Scheffler, who’d gone 2-1 alongside Sam Burns, including a pair of gritty fourball wins despite totaling just four birdies on his own ball, but in his Cup career to date has mustered just a single foursomes victory. As Scheffler and Burns were putting away Hideki Matsuyama and Ryo Hisatsune by winning three straight holes, Snedeker was making the decision to drop Scheffler in favor of pairing Burns with Wyndham Clark.
“It kind of unfolded [during the fourballs],” Snedeker said. “I had some ideas about – Scottie puts the world on his shoulders, and he puts his whole team on his shoulders and takes a lot on. I was really trying to get him some energy for tomorrow. I know tomorrow is going to be a big day. It’s obviously a tough decision, really hard decision to sit the best player in the world and probably one of the best players I’ve ever seen in person. I just want to put him in the best situation tomorrow to go out there and have a great day and get some rest.”
Perhaps adding insult to injury, the news was broken to Scheffler not by Snedeker or an assistant captain but during Scheffler’s post-match television interview.
“Yeah, our team is a great team, and I’m looking forward to going out and supporting the guys,” Scheffler said. “Yeah, it’ll be fun this afternoon, and yeah, cheer them on, get a little rest.”
Added Snedeker on Saturday night: “I couldn’t get to him before, so the TV people told him before I could get to him. Scottie is a team guy. He wants whatever is best for this team. He’d run through a wall for all those guys in that room. He took it like a champ.”
Scheffler will return to action for a singles match against Nico Echavarria, who’s been resting as well; the rookie hasn’t played since Thursday.
That’s the fourth match off, as Scheffler (who, by the way, was put on the board by Snedeker, giving Ogilvy the chance to match with his sacrificial lamb) is joined in the top half of the order by Young, Clark, Thomas, Burns and Gotterup. As we saw a few weeks ago at the Walker Cup, where Great Britain and Ireland won the singles session 7-3 to complete its three-point comeback, front-loading provides the best path to rally. Even with the Presidents Cup’s unique pairings process, where captains alternate putting players on the board in realtime, the Americans must grab momentum early, regardless of what the individual matchups are.
And thus, it was perhaps Snedeker’s easiest decision of the week.
“We led pretty heavy,” Snedeker said. “We’ve got some studs up there at the top of the lineup that are going to go out there and hopefully put a bunch of red on the board, get this crowd behind us. We’ve got some studs throughout the whole lineup. We’ve got some guys in there to do what they’re meant to do. I know what kind of players we have in there. We’ve got a bunch of guys that have won a lot of golf on the PGA Tour. They’ve won major championships. They know what championship golf looks like. This is a championship-type golf course. It’s going to play tough tomorrow.
“They’ve got the mettle it takes to go out there and do the right things.”
And if they don’t, Snedeker has already shown he has no issue taking the blame.