The Best Presidents Cup Pairings Were Built on Trust, Not Star Power

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The Best Presidents Cup Pairings Were Built on Trust, Not Star Power

Brendon Elliott · Athlon Sports

Sun, Sep 27, 2026 ·

11 min read

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Tom Kim went first on the par-3 16th Saturday morning because Si Woo Kim was between clubs.

The plan was hardly complicated. Get one ball somewhere safe. Give Si Woo a better look at the number. Let him attack.

Tom's ball found the bunker, but it had done enough. Si Woo suddenly had the freedom to be aggressive, hit the shot they needed and eventually helped turn another point toward the International Team.

Those few minutes said more about the best partnerships at this Presidents Cup than any attempt to measure chemistry through friendship, personality or world ranking.

The best pairings this week have understood who needed to do what, and when.

Through four team sessions at Medinah, no partnership has demonstrated that more consistently than Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim.

Brendon's Pairing Power Board

The Partnerships That Worked Best at Medinah

Results through Saturday, judged on points, format versatility, competitive impact and how the players functioned together.

Tom Kim / Si Woo Kim

International Team | 3-1 this week

Best Overall

Chris Gotterup / Cameron Young

United States | 2-0

Best Saturday

Corey Conners / Nick Taylor

International Team | 2-1 overall, 2-0 foursomes

Toughest to Finish

Ryan Fox / Min Woo Lee

International Team | 2-0

Foursomes Fit

Scottie Scheffler / Sam Burns

United States | 2-1, including 2-0 in four-ball

Four-Ball Strength

Justin Thomas / Jackson Koivun

United States | 1-0-1

Still Unbeaten

Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim Set the Standard

Tom Kim of the International Team reacts toward the gallery after playing partner Si Woo Kim birdied the 16th hole during Saturday play at the Presidents Cup. The Americans won the day, but Kim and the International Team did enough to carry a three-point advantage into Sunday singles. Sep. 26, 2026; Medinah, Illinois. Credit: Jerod Ringwald-Imagn Images.

Three wins in four matches gets the attention first.

The way they collected those points is more interesting.

Kim and Kim won four-ball Thursday, foursomes Friday and four-ball again Saturday morning before Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele finally stopped them in Saturday afternoon foursomes. That is production in both team formats, against several different American combinations.

Their Saturday morning win over Collin Morikawa and Wyndham Clark showed the partnership at its best.

Tom Kim openly acknowledged that Si Woo was playing the stronger golf. Rather than trying to match him shot for shot, Tom adjusted his role. He tried to keep balls in play, supply reads and create chances for Si Woo to be aggressive.

That sounds simple until the pressure rises.

Players who try to manufacture something because their partner is carrying more of the load can make team golf considerably harder. Tom did the opposite. He recognized what the pairing needed from him and leaned into it.

Si Woo returned the favor when the shots became his responsibility.

The partnership has enough emotion to energize a Presidents Cup and enough discipline to avoid turning that emotion into chaos. That combination is difficult to beat.

If one pairing deserves to be remembered as the defining duo of the first three days at Medinah, it is this one.

Gotterup and Young Needed Only One Day

Cameron Young fist bumps Chris Gotterup of the U.S. Team on the fourth green during the third round of the Presidents Cup. Sep 26, 2026; Medinah, Illinois. Credit: Jerod Ringwald-Imagn Images.

Chris Gotterup and Cameron Young did not arrive Saturday with a long Presidents Cup history together.

By Saturday night, they had become the most productive American partnership of the day.

Their first match together started with four consecutive hole wins against Nick Taylor and Corey Conners. They eventually closed out the morning four-ball match 2 and 1.

Then Brandt Snedeker kept them together for foursomes.

That decision mattered because Friday had been brutal for the Americans in alternate shot. The International Team swept all five matches, and the U.S. needed something on Saturday that suggested the format itself had not become a mental obstacle.

Gotterup and Young gave them exactly that.

Their afternoon victory was the first American foursomes point of the week.

Young later pointed to the benefit of playing both sessions with the same partner. There was no need to reset after lunch, figure out a different personality or learn another player's tendencies. They had spent the morning building something and simply kept going.

Gotterup offered the better line.

"If I get to hit his shots all the time, I do pretty good at golf."

Behind the humor was one of the ingredients that makes alternate shot work. He trusted the places Young left him.

That is not a small thing in foursomes.

A golfer can spend an entire individual tournament choosing his own angles, managing his own misses and living with his own decisions. Alternate shot takes away that control. Great partners make the loss of control feel less uncomfortable.

Gotterup and Young figured that out quickly.

Conners and Taylor Became the Pair Nobody Could Finish Off

Nick Taylor of the International Team and Corey Conners of the International Team react on the 18th green during the third round of the Presidents Cup. Sep 26, 2026; Medinah, Illinois. Credit: Jerod Ringwald-Imagn Images.

Corey Conners and Nick Taylor deserve more attention than their 2-1 record together might initially suggest.

Both victories came in foursomes.

On Friday, they handed Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns their only loss together this week, winning 1-up as part of the International Team's 5-0 sweep.

Saturday afternoon was more revealing.

Conners and Taylor were 3-down through 10 against Russell Henley and Jacob Bridgeman. With the U.S. trying to turn Saturday into a much larger comeback, that match looked ready to become another American point.

It never did.

The Canadians stayed close enough for the match to change, continued putting pressure on the Americans and eventually won.

Taylor used the word "relentless" afterward.

It fits this pairing better than anything more elaborate.

There is enormous value in a team partner who does not treat a bad stretch as a verdict on the match. Conners and Taylor absorbed enough early damage Saturday that a less settled pairing could have started pressing. They instead kept finding the next playable shot and the next hole.

That point helped preserve the International lead heading into Sunday.

Fox and Lee Found a Foursomes Partnership That Fits

Ryan Fox and Min Woo Lee of the International Team react on the 16th hole during the second round of the Presidents Cup. Sep 25, 2026; Medinah, Illinois. Credit: Jerod Ringwald-Imagn Images.Credit: Jerod Ringwald-Imagn Images

Ryan Fox and Min Woo Lee have been together only twice this week.

They are 2-0.

Both matches came in foursomes, which makes the record more significant considering how much alternate shot has shaped this Presidents Cup.

Fox and Lee beat Morikawa and Clark on Friday, then came back Saturday afternoon against Burns and Clark.

Their relationship predates Medinah. Fox spoke about the amount of golf they have played together and the time they have spent traveling since Lee turned professional.

That familiarity matters differently in foursomes than it does in four-ball.

Four-ball allows two individual games to coexist. Alternate shot forces one shared game onto two players.

Bad shots become somebody else's problem. Great shots still require a partner to finish the job. A player who begins fighting his own swing needs somebody beside him who can keep the match from becoming emotionally heavier than it already is.

Lee described Fox doing exactly that Saturday when his own start was poor.

The pairing never needed to look perfect.

It needed to stay connected long enough to turn the match.

It did.

Pairing Intelligence

A Great Pairing in One Format Is Not Automatically Great in the Other

PAIRING

FOUR-BALL

FOURSOMES

Tom Kim / Si Woo Kim

2-0

1-1

Gotterup / Young

1-0

Conners / Taylor

0-1

2-0

Fox / Lee

DNP

2-0

Scheffler / Burns

2-0

0-1

The coaching takeaway:Pairing success is partly about chemistry, but format dictates what that chemistry has to accomplish.

Scheffler and Burns Show Why Format Matters

Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns of the U.S. Team look on during the second round of the Presidents Cup. Sep 25, 2026; Medinah, Illinois. Credit: Jerod Ringwald-Imagn Images.

Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns are another one of the week's best pairings, with one important qualifier.

Their best golf together has come in four-ball.

They won Thursday against Min Woo Lee and Sungjae Im and beat Hideki Matsuyama and Ryo Hisatsune on Saturday morning. Their only loss came Friday in foursomes against Conners and Taylor.

That split is worth paying attention to because team pairings are too often discussed as though compatibility should transfer automatically from one format to another.

It does not.

Four-ball rewards players who can create birdie opportunities independently while giving each other protection. Foursomes demands shared rhythm, compatible ball-striking patterns, comfort with alternate tee-shot responsibilities and an ability to inherit whatever the other player leaves behind.

Scheffler and Burns clearly have something in four-ball. Scheffler remains unbeaten in Presidents Cup four-ball for his career, and the partnership has repeatedly been productive when both men are playing their own ball.

Friday showed that does not make every combination equally effective in alternate shot.

Pairing decisions should not ignore format simply because two players like each other or have succeeded together elsewhere.

Team Double J: Thomas and Koivun Made the Veteran-Rookie Idea Work

Justin Thomas and Jackson Koivun of the U.S. Team stand on the first hole during the third round of the Presidents Cup. Sep 26, 2026; Medinah, Illinois. Credit: Jerod Ringwald-Imagn Images.

Justin Thomas and Jackson Koivun produced a different kind of partnership.

They are 1-0-1 together.

Both matches came in four-ball, beginning with a 4-and-3 win Thursday and followed by Saturday morning's tie with Lee and Sungjae Im.

The pairing made sense on paper because Thomas brought extensive Presidents Cup experience alongside a rookie. What made it work was that Koivun did not appear to spend the week playing like somebody waiting for the veteran to lead him around.

Thomas' reaction after Saturday's tie was revealing. He felt he had let Koivun down.

That changes the dynamic.

The experienced player was not talking about managing the rookie. He was talking about meeting the standard his partner had set.

Koivun has given the U.S. enough that Thomas could treat him like a teammate rather than a project.

That is probably the best outcome a captain can hope for when putting generations together.

Inside the Pairings

Four Different Ways to Make Team Golf Easier

Protect

Tom Kim / Si Woo Kim

Put one ball in position first, then give the partner playing better the freedom to attack.

Trust

Chris Gotterup / Cameron Young

They went from first-time partners to two Saturday wins without needing to overmanage each other's golf.

Recover

Corey Conners / Nick Taylor

Down three after 10 on Saturday, they kept the match alive long enough to reverse it completely.

Support

Ryan Fox / Min Woo Lee

When Lee struggled early Saturday, Fox helped keep the match emotionally and competitively intact.

The common thread:The strongest pairings reduced uncertainty for each other instead of adding to it.

The Best Pairings Made the Next Shot Easier

The temptation in team golf is to search for combinations that look impressive before anyone tees off.

This week has rewarded something else.

Kim and Kim understood when one player needed to protect and the other could attack.

Gotterup and Young trusted each other's golf almost immediately.

Conners and Taylor refused to let a deficit change how they competed.

Fox and Lee had enough history together to absorb ugly stretches.

Scheffler and Burns showed how strongly a pairing can fit one format even when another exposes different demands.

Thomas and Koivun made experience a resource instead of a hierarchy.

Those details are harder to chart than world rankings, but they are often what decide team golf.

Sunday removes all of it. There are no partners left, only 12 singles matches.

The International Team will begin that final session three points ahead.

That lead was built, in large part, by players who spent three days making somebody else's next shot a little easier.

PGA of America Golf Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer who serves as Athlon Sports Senior Golf Writer. Read his recent "The Starter" on RG.org, where he is their Lead Golf Writer. To stay updated on all of his latest work, sign up for his newsletter or visit his MuckRack Profile .

This story was originally published by Athlon Sports on Sep 27, 2026, where it first appeared in the Golf section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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