Trevor Immelman recalls with a laugh that there was, well, not much else happening on the final day of the 2007 Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal Golf Club.
At one point, he and David Toms stood in the fairway to watch the day’s headlining match on a big screen.
With the U.S. holding an insurmountable lead, the players weren’t the only ones
whose attention was drawn to the Singles showdown between the home country’s hero and the No. 1 player in the world.
The only time Immelman remembers seeing spectators was when they were waiting in bleachers or zipping between holes to get a good angle for Mike Weir versus Tiger Woods.
“It was absolutely the highlight of the week,” Immelman says.
But the match between Weir and Woods wasn’t just the most thrilling on-course exhibition of the competition. Beating Woods also was the spark Weir needed to become a PGA TOUR winner again.
“I found the focus again and these things can just boost your career,” says Weir. “And it did.”
Fifteen years on, Weir has been named the International Team’s captain for the Presidents Cup’s return to Royal Montreal in 2024. He’ll take the reins from Immelman, who helmed the team in 2022 at Quail Hallow. Weir was a captain’s assistant for Immelman this year.
Weir went on a river-rafting trip with his family in southern Utah the week after the 2007 Presidents Cup, then won the Fortinet Championship in his very next PGA TOUR start. It was his first win in more than three years.
He recorded eight top-10 finishes in 2008 – his most in a season since 2003, the best campaign of his career– en route to finishing sixth in the FedExCup.
He made the TOUR Championship in 2009, as well, after finishing inside the top 25 in exactly 50% of his starts.
“It was a nice little boost at the end of that season and into the next,” Weir says about facing Woods in 2007. “There was a direct correlation from that whole week.”
It was one of the Presidents Cup’s unique characteristics that made the Weir-Woods match possible. Captains don’t submit their lineups for each session in an envelope, unaware of their opponent’s plans. They do so face to face, responding to each captain’s move with a counter of their own.
Pitting Weir, the greatest male Canadian golfer of all time, against arguably the best to ever play the game was all but inevitable when the captains sat down Saturday night to set the next day’s Singles matches. The International Team’s leadership, Immelman says, thought it was “the right thing to do” and Weir didn’t shy away from taking on Woods, then the No.1 player in the world.
“It was a pretty short discussion,” Immelman says with a smile. “There was a huge buzz around the course …with the Canadian guy taking on the best player in the world.”
Prior to the 2007 matches, Weir had been in a bit of funk. He was the lowest-ranked player picked for the International Team, but with the Presidents Cup being in Canada for the first time it made all the sense in the world to have him on the roster.
Weir had, of course, won the Masters just four years prior and reached No. 3 in the world. He was named the Canadian Athlete of The Year, among many honors he earned in his home country that year.
He hadn’t, however, won on the PGA TOUR since The Genesis Invitational in 2004. He had a steady season in 2007 but nothing stood out until he notched back-to-back top-10s in mid-summer, including a T8 at The Open. He finished 20th in the International Team’s points standings and was 46th in the world heading into the matches.
“There’s some weight to carry when you’re picked in your home country and you haven’t been playing great and to find some really good form is a challenge,” Weir says now. “It was really important for me at that stage.”
Weir and Vijay Singh halved their match on Thursday before Weir and Ernie Els won on Friday, 3 and 1. Weir lost on Saturday morning alongside Singh before pairing with Els for another win in the afternoon.
Weir and Woods then went out in Sunday’s fourth match.
Although the International Team would go on to lose 19.5-14.5, the squad won the Sunday Singles portion of the matches 7-5, highlighted by Weir’s triumph over Woods, which went the distance.
“For all the pressure that he had all week, it was pretty phenomenal how he played,” said Woods that Sunday. “I mean, not a lot of people could actually have dealt with the things he had to deal with all week. And the way he came out and represented all of Canada was impressive.”
Woods, whose seven wins that year included the PGA Championship, struggled early, missing a short putt on the opening hole before hitting his tee ball on No. 6 out of bounds. Weir didn’t cruise to victory, however. Woods was 3 down at one point but rattled off birdies on four of five holes after making the turn and was 1 up late. The Canadian squared the match on No. 17 with a 10-foot birdie. Woods hit his ball in the water on the closing hole and made bogey, conceding Weir’s tap-in par and the match. Weir won, 1 up.
“It was difficult to see any shots because the crowd was five or six deep, but the energy was probably the best I’ve ever been involved with watching Mike play on a golf course,” says Weir’s brother, Jim.
Jim Weir has been along for the ride for most of his younger brother’s biggest golfing moments. With each passing day in 2007, he assumed his brother would be matched up with Woods for the finale and figured his brother just needed to stay shot-for-shot with Woods. He couldn’t let Woods get out to an early start, but if it came down to the closing stretch, Weir might be OK.
It was a nice prediction that essentially came true.
“I was relieved (the pairing) happened but nervous, like, ‘Oh my God, he’s going to play against the No.1 player in the world,’” says Jim. “It was just really electric. It was a lot of high fives, a lot of fist pumps. … Everyone was so into it. People were running between holes. The adrenaline was pumping. I just remember that atmosphere and the vibe was just really cool.
“I’m positive Mike would have fed off that Canadian energy to push him through.”
Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners, who both played in this year’s Presidents Cup, were teenagers living several hours southwest of Montreal in 2007. Both had just started taking golf seriously and say Weir’s win was the strongest Presidents Cup memory they had growing up.
“It was a huge deal that he beat Tiger and being in Canada made it even more special,” says Pendrith.
“Playing the best player in the world and to be able to get it done? That’s just really, really cool,” adds Conners.
Pendrith and Conners now have the potential to play under their idol in two years’ time back at Royal Montreal, as do players like Mackenzie Hughes, Adam Svensson and Adam Hadwin. Hughes won his second PGA TOUR title this fall, while Svensson is the TOUR’s most recent winner after earning his first title at The RSM Classic. Hadwin is a past Presidents Cup participant.
“It’s definitely a huge goal of mine to get back onto that team,” says Pendrith. “It was an unreal experience… and I think motivated me and the rest of the team to get a win at some point. To have it in Canada at Royal Montreal and to have Mike as the captain is going to be amazing.
“Obviously he has some history himself there at the Presidents Cup, so it’ll be really cool for him to lead the guys hopefully to a win on home soil. I think it’s going to be amazing. He’s a great leader. A great speaker. And I think he’ll really motivate the guys.”
With the next generation of Canadian TOUR stars watching from home in 2007, Weir ended up going 3-1-1 at Royal Montreal. He earned 3.5 points and was the International team’s most successful player.
From 2010 and onwards, Weir spent plenty of time trying to re-kindle his old magic from the early 2000s. He battled injuries and navigated some off-course hurdles, as well. That win in the 2007 Fortinet turned out to be the last of his eight PGA TOUR wins. But as he inched closer to 50, PGA TOUR Champions offered a second lease on his golfing life. He won his first title on that circuit in 2021.
His passion for the Presidents Cup never waned.
He returned to the team in 2009, this time on merit, and was a captain’s assistant three times (2017, 2019, and 2022) before being selected to head the squad for 2024. And now he’s hoping that Montreal magic will come back stronger than ever.
“I want to bring that intensity for the guys,” says Weir.
Nothing, however, may top how intense things were that Sunday in 2007, when Weir took on, and beat, the No.1 player in the world.
“After Mike made the birdie on 17 I remember the crowd just erupted and I remember seeing Tiger say something to Mike. Tiger had said that was one of the loudest roars he had ever heard,” says Jim Weir. “For him… that’s pretty amazing.”
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Source: Tampa Bay Times
