MONTREAL — The crowd in Quebec wasn’t exactly rowdy Thursday afternoon, so the Royal Montreal gallery was jolted by the sheer volume of the world’s No. 1 player’s scream. It was piercing. It was unexpected. It changed the meaning of the match. Scottie Scheffler was on autopilot for six holes of the Presidents Cup four-ball. He wasn’t bad. He was not well. It was one par after another in an exciting match.

Until Tom Kim poked the bear.

The 22-year-old South Korean thought he was finally on the board when he sank a twisting, slow-rolling 27-foot birdie putt on No. 7 to potentially bring the match within one. He turned around and shouted, “Let’s go!” riling up the fans as much as he could while Scheffler lined up his equally difficult 27-foot putt.

Scheffler’s putt rolled and rolled, and before the ball was even in the hole, the normally calm, cold Scheffler turned his entire body directly toward Kim, his eyes lasered on him to ask a question.

“WHAT WAS THAT?” Scheffler shouted.

Electric match play energy on the 7th green as Tom Kim and Scottie Scheffler make dueling birdie putts. ⚡️👀

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And for a short time, the competition between two dear friends became intense. It straddled the fine but fine line between loving jokes and the genuine hostility we see with these cups. When Kim and Scheffler both found the green on 8, Kim made his birdie putt from 25 feet before waving his arms to the crowd again. International captain’s assistant Camilo Villegas then walked up to Kim and partner Sungjae Im and said a few words before the team walked through the crowd to the ninth tee before Scheffler finished his putt, an aggressive move that NBC analyst Paul McGinley called “disrespectful.” ” When Kevin Kisner, the American captain’s assistant, noticed it, he started talking to Villegas.

“I didn’t like what they did on 8,” Kisner said The Athletics. “Are you going to piss off the No. 1 player in the world?”

This is where we need to put on the brakes and paint the whole picture here. Scheffler and Kim are extremely close. They both live in Dallas and play many of their practice rounds together. They are so close that Scheffler’s father went to this year’s Byron Nelson, a tournament his son did not participate in, to support Kim. And that relationship can probably best be described as an older cousin always beating up the younger cousin at family gatherings. Scheffler, an old 28, is a trash talker and a competitor, so Kim, a young 22, becomes his punching bag in their countless rounds together.

This spring, Scheffler brought Kim and Si Woo Kim to his local club, Royal Oaks. They got to play Scheffler’s beloved gambling game of the wolf’s hammer with Scheffler’s traditional team of middle-aged members. Scheffler shot in the low sixties. Kim shot a 74 with no birdies. “They destroyed it,” said member Frank Voigt. Scheffler’s coach Randy Smith said Scheffler didn’t keep reminding him, reaching the point where Kim came back to Royal Oaks without Scheffler to redeem himself.

“Scottie will let him go somewhere, and then Scottie eliminates him,” Smith said. “Because Tom is such a cute boy. He’s so funny. But Scottie will kill him with facts.”

This is always their relationship, and they will probably always talk trash to each other. Scheffler even said after the round, “It’s the same thing I would do at home if we were playing wolf and he made his first putt of the day and celebrated like the game was over and we had a two-up lead. It was quite a nice moment for us to keep them quiet. It was a fun match. That’s really all.”

After the long birdie putt on 8, Kim screamed so long that he even stepped closer to Scheffler to make sure he heard him taunting him. Scheffler didn’t turn around to participate. He just stared straight to prepare for his putt before the South Koreans moved on to the next hole.

“To be honest when they walked away, I used to like yelling at them on the hole,” Scheffler said with a laugh. “I’m not going to say it was their fault, you know what I mean?”

Tom Kim, left, and Scottie Scheffler are friends on opposite teams this week. (Minas Panagiotakis/Getty Images)

On 10, Scheffler made a hard 25-footer for birdie. Kim responded with his own birdie from six yards to keep it within one. By then the taunting had become tamer. They celebrated their putts with restraint. Scheffler made 12 birdies for another halved hole before playing partner Russell Henley hit two pin-hunting birdies to see the duo pull away to win by three shots, part of a 5-0 day for the United States.

Ultimately, this was just some good old-fashioned Presidents Cup fun, but there may be an even bigger takeaway to consider.

Three years ago, Scheffler broke through as the risky Ryder Cup captain, courageously matching Steve Stricker with then world No. 1 Jon Rahm, and Scheffler took him on for a 4 and 3 victory. From there he made the leap to stardom, winning the 2022 Masters, becoming world No. 1 himself and taking over the role of the best player in the game.

But the very quiet – and possibly unfair – trend since America’s top star didn’t win a match at the 2022 Presidents Cup or the 2023 Ryder Cup. He played quite poorly after a tiring 2022 season, going 0-2-2 in Rome . The sample size was so small and it was suggested that Scheffler was one of many sick golfers in Rome. Stewart Cink was asked this week if there is any comparison to Tiger Woods, who went just 13-21-3 in the Ryder Cups, and he downplayed any similarity, saying that Woods is such an idiosyncratic person and that Scheffler is one of the craziest, most beloved players. in the locker room. Moreover, Scheffler’s career has only just begun.

But perhaps Thursday taught us that Scheffler is at his best when provoked. If he has something to hold on to. Scheffler, the stroke play golfer, must be zen and collected. He must shut out the world and accept that every shot is just a result. The only thing he has control over is his next moment. But Scheffler the match play golfer? He might be at his best when he’s the nameless rookie staring down Rahm’s giant or when Kim takes him big on Thursday at the Presidents Cup.

Because if you talk to anyone who knows Scheffler, they paint the picture of a friendly but ruthless competitor. He’s the guy who plays two-on-one pickleball matches against Royal Oaks members, who mocks his competitors in those Wolf Hammer games and wants to destroy everyone in any sport. That muscle power, that mentality, doesn’t suit him in stroke play.

It’s all about match play. Like Tom Kim just found out.

– The athletics‘s Gabby Herzig contributed to this report.

(Top photo of Tom Kim, left, and Scottie Scheffler: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)