Presidents Cup week is here, meaning the ultimate in competitive golf: match play.

 Written by Lorne Rubenstein, ScoreGolf

The 14th running of the Presidents Cup is imminent, which means we should prepare ourselves for the ultimate in competitive golf: match play, that is. The event is likely to produce both high drama and misadventures. Such is the nature of match play: Head-to-head, man-to-man, or, in the case of the Solheim Cup, woman-to-woman.

There’s nothing like it. Think about it. When does stroke play golf generate the high drama and misadventure to which I refer? When it turns into match play.

Return with me to the 2007 Presidents Cup at the Royal Montreal Golf Club. Jack Nicklaus was the captain of the U.S. team. Gary Player led the International side. Tiger Woods was on the U.S. team. Mike Weir was on the International team. Golf-watchers across Canada and on the premises wanted the two elite competitors to square off in the Sunday singles matches.

Weir was playing in his fourth Presidents Cup. He hadn’t been on a winning team. Then again, the Internationals had won only one of the previous competitions, in 1998 at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club. The teams tied in 2003 at the Links at Fancourt in George, South Africa.

It was all but guaranteed that the Internationals weren’t going to win in Montreal. The U.S. team took a seven-point lead into Sunday. But hardly anybody except the captain, his assistants, and the players on the International team cared about that. All week television viewers and spectators at what is, after all, meant to be a biennial spectacle, wanted one thing: a Weir/Woods match.

Player had been coy until the Sunday singles matches were announced. Every spectator on site — myself included — was all but certain Player and Nicklaus would pit Weir and Woods together. Presidents Cup captains can do that whereas Ryder Cup matches are blind draws. Player and Nicklaus decided on Saturday to do just that.

There’s no need to go deeply into the Weir-Woods match. Anybody who was around in 2007 or who has looked into the match knows that Weir won 1-up. I was following the match, along with some 30,000 spectators, who, as I say, didn’t care about the inevitable final result of the overall event. The U.S. won 19.5-14.5.

Fifteen years later, I remember how close the Woods-Weir match was. The greatest player in the game against the best in Canada. High drama indeed.

I’m hoping for that next week when the Presidents Cup goes at the Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C. Fifteen years after his tour de force at Royal Montreal, Weir will be one of International captain Trevor Immelman’s assistants. Immelman was on that 2007 team in Montreal.

I remember the 2007 Sunday singles between Weir and Woods not only because it was so highly anticipated. I remember it because of the tension head-to-head competition often brings. It calls to mind events that have come down to the end with two golfers up against one another, and nobody else contending. That’s match play when it far eclipses other forms of competition. That’s stroke play when it becomes match play.

I could go back a long way before, but I’ll start with the 1977 Open Championship at the Turnberry Golf Club in Ayr, Scotland. It was all Nicklaus and Watson down the final holes. They were playing together and playing brilliant golf. It was as if nobody else was in the tournament as it came down to the end.

Watson held a one-shot lead on the final hole. Nicklaus hit his tee shot nearly up against a bush and through the fairway. He somehow contrived a shot to the green that finished some 40 feet short of the hole. Watson’s approach came up three feet from the hole.

Nicklaus made his putt. Of course. Watson then made his putt to hold his one-shot lead and win. What a moment. Stroke play as match play.

Then there was the 2005 Masters, the one where Woods and Chris DiMarco were playing together in the final twosome. The one where Woods holed that pitch and run for birdie — yes, that one — from behind the 16th green that tumbled in drunk into the hole. They ended up in playoff. You know who won. Golfer against golfer. Stroke play as match play. As good as it gets.

One more, also involving Woods. Now we are at the 2003 Presidents Cup at the Links at Fancourt. Player and Nicklaus were captaining their respective teams. Woods beat Ernie Els, the mega-talented South African, 4&3, in their singles match. The Presidents Cup takes place over four days, and at that time there were 34 points to be had. (It’s now down to 30 points.) That event finished 17-17.

Now what? Woods and Els played a three-hole playoff. They were even when each hit the green on the third hole, a par 3. Els’s shot finished 45 feet from the hole. Woods’s shot finished 90 feet away. Els putted to six feet, Woods to 15, so it was still his turn. Woods made his par putt, and then Els, in his home country, and in near darkness, made his from six feet.

The captains, after speaking with then PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, agreed to deem the competition a tie. That hadn’t happened before and it’s doubtful it will happen again.

But what a match between Woods and Els.

Now here we go in Charlotte. One match after another, three days of pairs against pairs in better-ball and foursomes, and then the Sunday singles. I’d love to see Corey Connors and Taylor Pendrith together — hey, I’m Canadian — and then, in the singles, Connors against Jordan Spieth, say, and Pendrith against Justin Thomas.

I’m writing this days before Presidents Cup action begins. The pulse stirs. The brain buzzes. Match play is on the near horizon. High drama and misadventures.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I’m so into it I’m already looking forward to the 2024 Presidents Cup. The venue? Royal Montreal.