by South Korean Tom Kim accused his American opponents of poor sportsmanship and swore at him as tensions flared again at the Presidents Cup in Montreal.
The US won both Saturday’s fourballs and foursomes sessions 3-1 and moved ahead of the international team 11-7, with 12 more singles matches scheduled for Sunday.
It was Tom Kim and Kim Si-woo’s match against Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele in the alternating foursomes that got heated.
The South Korean duo had already defeated Keegan Bradley and Wyndham Clark 4&3 in the fourball before taking on Cantlay and Schauffele.
Trailing by two at the seventh, Tom Kim was angry that a three-foot par putt to halve the hole was not allowed by the Americans.
After holed the putt, the 22-year-old placed his putter next to the pin to illustrate how close he was.
Using their anger as motivation, Tom Kim holed a 35-foot hole on the ninth before tying the match on the tenth.
After falling behind again on the 16th, Kim Si-woo produced a beautiful chip from the Rough to level the match heading into the final two holes. He celebrated wildly by imitating Steph Curry’s “goodnight” celebration on the green.
“My favorite NBA player is Steph Curry, so that’s what I did,” Kim said.
“It didn’t end well, but yeah, I was excited,” he added after the Americans played the final one, with Cantlay making a birdie putt on the 18th to win the match.
However, the drama didn’t end there. Tom Kim, who was involved in a feud with world number one Scottie Scheffler on day one, accused his opponents – without specifying who – of swearing at him.
“As it got closer to the end, it got a little spicy,” he said.
“I heard some players swearing at us. I don’t think there was good sportsmanship. But it’s all part of the fun. I understand.”
“The American team definitely motivated us to go there.”
The accusation was denied by Kim’s opponents.
“I felt like Pat and I, we treated the Kims with the utmost respect. We tried to calm the crowd down when they were hitting,” Schauffele said.
‘I have no idea if anyone did that. I don’t think any of our guys would do something like that. So I’m not sure what he heard.”
Cantlay said he “didn’t even know what the goodnight gesture was” and was unaffected by his opponents’ actions.
