Major champ claims Mike Weir 'lost' Presidents Cup with Adam Scott mistake
Former major champion Rich Beem says it was a mistake for Mike Weir to play Adam Scott in every match of the 2024 Presidents Cup.
The inquest into what went wrong for the International team after their heavy Presidents Cup defeat has well and truly begun.
Captain Mike Weir is, unsurprisingly, on the receiving end of some criticism over his pairings at Royal Montreal in Canada.
The former Masters champion made some choices that observers considered quite unprecedented.
Chief of which was deciding to play the exact same pairings in Saturday's alternate shot as he had for the morning's four-ball.
Adam Scott, at the ripe old age of 44, was also selected to play in every single session.
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Weir also decided to bench Tom Kim after the opening day and not play Min Woo Lee at all until the Sunday singles.
Former World No.1 Jason Day didn't play at all on Saturday and was subsequently humbled by two-time major champion Xander Schauffele in the first match of the singles.
Perhaps the U.S. side are simply too talented but it's clear to some that Weir made some poor choices.
Former PGA Championship winner Rich Beem told Sky Sports that Weir 'lost' the Presidents Cup by leaning on the aforementioned Scott too much.
"I think Mike Weir lost it on Saturday by not mixing up some of his pairings going into the afternoon foursomes," he told the publication.
"I think that was a mistake and I think he'll reflect upon that, but they clearly had a game plan going into it."
He added: "Putting Adam Scott out there for the fourth straight match on Saturday afternoon, at the age of 44, was the wrong decision.
"I mean he had to have been drained and even Scott said himself that night that he was tired."
Beem also took aim at Weir decided to play Scott in the singles.
"Then you look at where Weir put him out in the singles," he said.
"He was down in one of the bottom groups.
"I would have thought that a fresh Scott – had he not played on Saturday afternoon – might have been in the top three matches and I think that's where you needed him.
"The International side has got all kinds of game, but when you have as much depth as the United States side, it's a massive difference.
"Anybody can beat anybody on one given day, but if you stretch it out to four different days, that's a different thing."
For his part, Weir claimed the matches were a lot closer than the score indicated.
Asked if he there was anything immediately apparent that he would have done differently, he said: "Oh, of course I'm going to be thinking about things I would have done differently.
"I think that's human nature, when you don't win, you're going to look at yourself in the mirror and see what you could have done different, no doubt about it.
"I have plenty of time to do that after."
Scott outlines future Presidents Cup plans
Adam Scott has now represented the Shield on 11 occasions.
Over the weekend, he set the record for most career points by an International player when he claimed his 22nd after he and Taylor Pendrith beat Collin Morikawa and Sahith Theegala 5&4 in the foursomes.
Scott wants to play when the Presidents Cup heads to Medinah in two years' time.
But father time may prevent that.
Asked if there's a 12th appearance in him, Scott replied: "Yeah, sure."
He added: "I believe there's something happening with this team internally under this Shield.
"I'd love to push along and give it one more shot if I can."
Scott's teammate, Si Woo Kim, was adamant the Aussie will be there.
"He's in already," Kim said. "We wrote his name down."
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