MONTREAL — Heading into this week’s Presidents Cup, the Americans had a Scottie Scheffler problem. In 2023 at the Ryder Cup, and a year earlier at the 2022 Presidents Cup, Scheffler was the No. 1 ranked golfer in the world and, in theory, the greatest weapon on either team. Nevertheless, he went 0-4-2 in the four-ball/foursomes sessions at those events and was held out of the final pairs session at both. Partnering with his friend Sam Burns four times and Brooks Koepka twice, Scheffler not only failed to win once in six tries, but suffered some embarrassing losses, chief among them a 9-and-7 throttling in Rome at the hands of Ludvig Aberg and Viktor Hovland on Friday afternoon.
The situation was at least vaguely reminiscent of what we saw from Tiger Woods for years at the Ryder Cup, where he posted a confounding 9-19-1 pairs record for his career and frequently left captains clueless as to how they should manage him. Stewart Cink pointed out earlier this week at Royal Montreal that Scheffler's case is different, since he's not nearly the imposing, formerly remote character that Woods was, but the record told a troubling story, and coming into Royal Montreal, captain Jim Furyk had a puzzle to solve.
Enter Russell Henley. At 35, Henley is playing his first team match-play event. He has been the definition of a consistent grinder on the PGA Tour throughout his career, with four wins to his name, but hasn't quite cracked the upper echelons to play in either a Presidents Cup or Ryder Cup. This year, he finished ninth in the points standings, good enough to secure a captain's pick. Furyk can't remember if the Henley-Scheffler pairing originated with him—"There might be an assistant back there that's like, 'are you kidding me, I was the one that gave you that idea,'" he said Friday—but he did recall approaching both players with the idea last month at the Tour Championship, and he cleared it with his analytics team, Scouts Consulting.
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"I also wanted to see how they interacted here this week," Furyk said. "We came in, we started our practice rounds on Sunday. Those guys played together every day and really hit it off. Kis [assistant captain Kevin Kisner] has been kind of hanging with their groups a lot, and it just seems like a good pair as far as the personalities go. They had a great time out there today together."
Not only did they have a great time, but Henley finished third in strokes gained for the opening session Thursday and hit plenty of clutch shots down the stretch to carry his weight en route to a 3-and-2 win against Sungjae Im and Tom Kim. All along Kisner cheered on his fellow Georgia Bulldog along in person and on Twitter:
On Friday, as the Americans faced a shocking onslaught from the Internationals that saw their lead go from 5-0 to 5-4, it left Henley and Scheffler as the last match on the course, fighting a desperate rearguard action to keep the Americans in the lead and prevent a full reversal. Henley played a solid back nine, but a dramatic Si Woo Kim bomb on 18 preserved a 1-up victory for the Internationals.
Finally, on Saturday afternoon, paired once again with the World No. 1 in foursomes, Henley got just about the worst performance you could get from your partner for nine holes and change … and carried Scheffler, keeping things close while Sungjae Im and Hideki Matsuyama drained everything in sight. (In fact, Scheffler would finish that round with the worst strokes-gained numbers of any player in the session.) Finally, after falling 3-down, the Americans began to fight back; Scheffler stopped missing bunnies, Henley dropped iron after iron to close range, and they wound up beating one of the best International teams just before darkness fell on Montreal, 3 and 2.
"He's a tough, tough competitor," Henley said of Scheffler. "No matter the situation, he just kind of keeps doing his same thing over and over. He never gets too fast, too slow. What he can do with the golf ball is extremely impressive. So it's been really fun to watch and have him on my team."
When pressed on how this might bode for him for future Cups, Henley wouldn't take the bait. Still, make no mistake—these three days represented a huge opportunity for Henley, and not just for Montreal. Clearly, there is value in being a great partner to Scheffler, because you can bet (barring injury) Scottie is not missing a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup anytime soon. Henley is now in the enviable position of being the only guy outside of Bryson DeChambeau who has actually won while partnering with Scheffler—twice, and almost a third time—and that makes him an attractive commodity for future events. Next year at Bethpage, when Keegan Bradley is trying to decide on his captain's picks, a winning record with Scheffler will be upmost in his mind, and it'll be hard not to take Henley. The more he can win, the more that narrative persists, and the more teams he could make if he's in a marginal position.
After three matches, Henley has proven his value with Scheffler and seized the opportunity before him. His team match-play career may have started relatively late in the day, but he's got more than a few prime years left, and he's set himself up nicely to keep making teams in the years to come. He's hitched his wagon to quite a horse, and until proven otherwise, he's the Scheffler Whisperer.