Presidents Cup captain Mike Weir on making fair picks for the 'international community': "I was very justified with the three Canadian picks"

The 2024 Presidents Cup will be held from September 24 to 29 at the Royal Montreal Golf Club, Canada. The pressure is on for the International Team, who will be featuring three golfers from Canada.

Corey Conners, Taylor Pendrith, and Mackenzie Hughes will all be playing in front of a home crowd and will be fan favorites to win the event this year. Mike Weir had difficult choices to make when it came to choosing the captain's picks. After leaving out Nick Taylor, Weir explained the reasoning behind his choices.

Weir was quoted as saying about having three Canadian golfers on the roster (via Sportsnet):

“As captain you have to be fair to the whole international community. I think I was very justified with the three (Canadian) picks, very exciting. I think it just shows the state of Canadian golf that we can pick three for five or six guys that were in the mix."

Weir is also relying on the fact that the Canadian golfers will bring the home crowd together to root for the International Team to win. He said:

“You do want the Canadian fans. I think they're going to be very engaged with all our international players. But having some Canadians on there brings a little bit more juice, so to speak, to our team.”

The US Team is the defending champion for the Presidents Cup.

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Exploring the International Team for the 2024 Presidents Cup

The International Team for the 2024 Presidents Cup consists of 12 golfers, six of whom qualified through automatic selection due to points. The other six golfers were captain's picks.

Here are the automatic qualifiers for the International Team:

• Hideki Matsuyama
• Sungjae Im
• Adam Scott
• Tom Kim
• Jason Day
• Byeong Hun An

These were the six captain's picks:

• Corey Conners
• Mackenzie Hughes
• Taylor Pendrith
• Christiaan Bezuidenhout
• Si Woo Kim
• Min Woo Lee

Weir claimed the team has bonded over the last few weeks, including going to several team dinners. Pairings will be very important on the days of the matches for golfers to play well. Talking about team bonding, Weir said (via Sportsnet):

“The guys have formed a bond. They bought into that. They've bought into our team strategy and the way we've tried to create our team, form our team. We do know the past, and we want to change that, and we're doing all the little things behind the scenes to help to change that.”

The US Team will be tough competition for the International Team, with the likes of Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele headlining the American roster. The US Team won the 2022 Presidents Cup 17.5 to 12.5.