Medinah loves drama, and this Presidents Cup was no different. This is the same course where Europe pulled off the “Miracle at Medinah” in 2012, storming back from 10-6 down to steal the Ryder Cup on the final day. So when the home team blows a lead here, it stings extra. Team USA came out strong Thursday, then got swept Friday in foursomes, wiping out that early lead in one bad session. Saturday’s fourballs clawed some ground back, but the Americans still trailed by three points heading into Sunday, with more questions than answers.

Captain Brandt Snedeker sat Scottie Scheffler, Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa and Jackson Koivun for Saturday’s foursomes, a call that on its own explains why the format, not the players, is now the real story at Medinah. Five questions from the team rounds, answered one at a time.

Is Scottie Scheffler Fit For Team Events?

The uncomfortable answer is no, at least not in alternate shot. Scheffler entered Saturday 1-8-0 in foursomes across his Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup career, and only three players in the format’s history have a worse points percentage. The number finally forced a decision nobody wanted to make. Snedeker benched his own world No. 1 for Saturday afternoon, choosing to protect Scheffler for singles rather than run him back out in a format that keeps punishing him.

The captain framed it as care, not judgment. “Scottie’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders carrying Team USA,” Snedeker said, adding that it was time for the team to carry him for a session. Scheffler took it without complaint, saying he had played a lot of golf this year and would cheer from the ropes. That reaction matters. A player fighting the decision would suggest denial about the format problem. A player accepting it, especially the best player in the world, tells you the foursomes issue is now understood inside the team room, not just outside it.

Was Picking Jackson Koivun Worth It?

Yes, and Saturday’s benching does not change that. Koivun sitting out the second foursomes session was about managing a rookie’s course, not demoting him. His debut alongside Justin Thomas produced the first point of the week for the Americans, and by Saturday morning he was still finding form under pressure, birdieing the opening hole to spark the gallery.

The Thomas pairing did the heavy lifting early, and Koivun leaned on it the way any 21-year-old would. PGA Tour’s own coverage raised the idea that the partnership works both ways, suggesting Thomas might be invigorated by mentoring a young player the way Justin Rose once shepherded Robert MacIntyre at Marco Simone, though that comparison came from the writer’s own observation rather than something Thomas said himself.

Koivun’s own read on it was simple, crediting Thomas for picking him up when his own game wobbled. That is the bridge worth watching. A captain’s pick who needed carrying in September is a very different proposition than one who needs carrying in a Ryder Cup year. Whether Koivun is ready for that step is the next question this week actually answers, not this one.

Were The Kims Still Unstoppable?

Close to it. Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim carried the International team’s form for most of the week, winning Thursday’s fourball, Friday’s foursomes, and another fourball over Morikawa and Clark on Saturday morning to run their record for the week to 3-0-0. Their chemistry has been built over four years of Presidents Cups, and it showed in how they closed matches rather than just led them.

Tom Kim explained the mentality plainly, saying the pair never wanted to leave the door open once they got ahead. That approach finally met its match Saturday afternoon, when Cantlay and Schauffele snapped the Kims’ unbeaten run in a 2-and-1 foursomes win, dropping them to 3-1-0 for the week. The loss does not erase the larger point. A duo that dominant for three sessions, only broken by the Americans’ best pairing in the last foursomes match the event will see, is exactly the kind of pairing that swings cups. Ogilvy will run it back Sunday if he can.

Are Collin And Russell Still Hated By USA Fans?

The reputation has not lined up with the week’s actual swings. Morikawa sat out the final foursomes session as part of Snedeker’s rotation, while Henley and Jacob Bridgeman lost a tight 1-up match to Corey Conners and Nick Taylor in that same session, the kind of result that comes down to a hole or two rather than a pattern of failure. Neither outcome supports a villain framing, they are just the ordinary bounces of a long team week.

It was actually Wyndham Clark, not Morikawa or Henley, who raised the crowd question, though it took two separate comments rather than one. After Thursday’s play, Clark called the atmosphere “kind of dead out there,” saying the momentum could have been better if the fans had been louder.

Separately, in comments about his reputation heading into the week, following hostile crowds at this year’s U.S. Open and the BMW Championship, Clark said he hoped that eventually people would be rooting for him rather than casting him as the underdog. Those are two different remarks from two different moments, not one comment tied to Thursday’s atmosphere specifically.

Either way, the reframe holds: the louder storyline at Medinah has not been fans turning on Morikawa or Henley, it has been fans not showing up loudly enough for anyone. The results this week have been ordinary team-golf variance, not a referendum on either player.

Does America Have A Foursomes Problem?

The numbers settle this debate well. The Americans were a combined 6-24-0 in foursomes across the last two Presidents Cups and Ryder Cups as of right after Friday’s sweep; Saturday’s 2-2 foursomes split pushes that record further, to roughly 8-26-0. Friday’s session made the record worse on its own, with the International team sweeping all five foursomes matches again, a repeat of their 2024 sweep in Montreal. Six is the total number of holes U.S. duos led across those five matches combined, a number that explains the format collapse better than any single result does.

Snedeker was measured about it after Friday’s sweep, not pinning the loss on his own team’s missed putts.

“It didn’t go great,” he said. “I feel like our guys played pretty well, all in all. I know the scoreboard doesn’t reflect it, but we’re only one-third of the way through this thing.”

If anything, he credited the Internationals rather than blaming his own players’ putting: “They went out there and played great. They made a ton of putts.” Two cups and two continents into the same pattern, the explanation of bad luck is wearing thin regardless of who’s credited for it.

Alternate shot is where American depth breaks down first, and Scheffler’s own struggles in the format look less like a personal slump and more like the rest of the roster’s problem too.

The team rounds at Medinah answered the loud questions and left the structural one hanging over Sunday. Singles will settle the cup, but foursomes will decide whether this era of American dominance at the Presidents Cup needs a real fix before the next Ryder Cup arrives.