Nico Echavarria, 32-year-old Colombian golf star, has had some big moments: his two wins, both in 2018, on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica; his three-pack of PGA Tour wins (2026 Cognizant Classic, 2024 Zozo Championship, 2023 Puerto Rico Open); and his 11 majors starts (best finish: T41, 2025 PGA Championship). Lest you’ve forgotten, Echavarria also won a sudden-death playoff at the 2025 Masters Par-3 Contest. In a duel with J.J. Spaun, Echavarria secured the coveted crystal pedestal bowl when on the second playoff hole he stuffed his tee shot to kick-in range. 

It would be a while — give or take 17 months — before Echavarria would face another American star in a head-to-head clash. But it happened at the Presidents Cup on Sunday, when Echavarria drew the International’s team short straw: a date with world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler in one of the event’s 12 decisive singles matches. 

The Internationals, which carried a three-point lead into singles, needed to scratch out just 5 points to upset the Americans. But no one was banking on Echavarria pitching in — not for lack of effort or desire on Echavarria’s part but for the sheer difficulty of the task in front of him: the top-ranked player in Data Golf’s ranking vs. the 126th-ranked player, who also happened to be, statistically speaking, the weakest player on either Presidents Cup side. 

There was an obvious analogy — heck, Echavarria himself had cited it when speaking at the PGA Tour’s Asheville, N.C., event earlier this month. “A little bit of David against Goliath,” he said. Echavarria was talking about the International team vs. the U.S. team at large, but the same principle (and then some) applied to Echavarria’s Sunday draw. 

Still, stuff happens in sports. Ask Mike Eruzione or Buster Douglas or Appalachian State. Match play in golf can be especially hard to predict. “I don’t think statistics are as important this week as people think,” Echavarria said earlier this week. “I think it’s more of a mindset of you’re playing one-on-one against a person. You don’t have to shoot six under. You can shoot three over and win a match, and that’s a point.”

Maybe, but three over rarely gets it done against the world’s best player. On Sunday, Scheffler snatched the early lead with a birdie at the par-4 2nd. Undaunted, Echavarria fired back with a birdie — and win — of his own on the ensuing par-5. But then Scheffler started to do Scheffler things: birdie on 5. Birdie on 6. Birdie on 8. Three up. “He doesn’t make many mistakes,” Echavarria said later. When Scheffler rolled in another bird at 10 to go 4 up, if the fat lady wasn’t singing, she was certainly loosening up her larynx. 

Echavarria wasn’t just fighting Scheffler, he also was fighting off the fans. That’s part of the deal when you’re on the road in these supercharged team events, but Echavarria seemed to be getting it worse than most. “It didn’t happen just once,” he said after his round.

The most offensive — and consequential — disruption came on the tee at the par-4 14th, where as Echavarria wound up to swing, a fan yelled, “Go Scottie!” 

As Echavarria’s drive sailed toward the right rough, he let go of his driver and looked toward the offending heckler. Scheffler also was seething. He walked across the tee box and barked, ”There’s no place for that!”

Echavarria made a mess of the hole, knocking his third shot off the back of the green, 32 feet from the pin. Scheffler, meanwhile, had a tap-in par, which surely would have won him the hole. Only it didn’t, because Scheffler, in an act of sportsmanship, conceded Echavarria his par for a push that will go down in Presidents Cup lore.

“We have the No. 1 player in the world who’s a class act,” Echavarria said later. “I wasn’t expecting for him to give me that.”

No one was, not in the moment. But in retrospect, it was the only thing to do.

Scheffler, as he so often does on the golf course, had seen what many of us had missed: the unjustness of an imbecile fan’s actions could not simply be frowned upon and then swept under the rug. Action needed to be taken. In Scheffler’s mind, with his opponent reeling, there was only one way to proceed. He wasn’t being a hero or in pursuit of a congressional medal. He was merely doing what was so plainly right. That might also explain why after the match Scheffler dismissed framing the act as any kind of noble or magnanimous gesture. Mostly he was just pissed off at the offending fan.   

“There’s just no place for that,” Scheffler said in the U.S. team’s Sunday-evening press conference. “I was very frustrated. It was honestly a big distraction, I think for me, just because we compete and work so hard to put ourselves in these moments. When you have some fan who decides to insert himself into the tournament, you can say, I think, whatever you want to players, but I think there’s an amount of respect there. You should get about 30 seconds when you’re over the ball and hitting your shot or getting ready for your shot where fans are pretty silent.

“It just didn’t really sit well with me. He would never hit a shot as poorly as he hit, I think, off the 14th if there wasn’t a fan yelling in his swing. I don’t really want to talk about it all that much.”

And that was that. 

Echavarria also was irritated, which is why he so relished chipping in on 16 to pull within two holes of Scheffler with two to play. In a move right out of Patrick Reed’s playbook, Echavarria put his finger to his lips and shushed the crowd.

“It’s just frustrating with the amount of things that they say to you, so when you can give one back to them, it feels really good,” he said. “Making that to keep the match going was very cool.”

It didn’t go on for much longer. When Echavarria’s approach on the next hole, the par-4 17th, ran past the pin and through the green, so, too, did his last best hope of taking down Scheffler.  

Scheffler won the match, 2 and 1. 

He also won a new fan.  

“He’s just different,” Echavarria said. “Even how good he is, he’s a truly amazing guy.”

MEDINAH, Ill. — It was a sad scene: A group of golfers, dressed in black, milling about in silence. Their caddies and families, standing beside them. And all watching as their red-shirted counterparts spilled onto the 18th green at Medinah Country Club, the United States team celebrating a win the International team had desperately wanted for themselves.

A scene only made sadder because one of their teammates had already hit the road.

Tom Kim had played his heart out. He’d earned four points for his squad — the most by any golfer on either side — and he’d stayed as long as he could. And then, when he ducked out early, it was for good reason.

Still, there was a little extra melancholy in his absence, knowing the International team was missing the player who’d been at their center, both competitively and emotionally, all week long. Kim, like many of his teammates, speaks with reverence and gratitude about these weeks; they come just once every two years and bring a welcome dose of camaraderie to the blessed-but-lonely existence of a pro golfer. It would have been joyous to have Kim there in victory, and it would have brought comfort to have him there in defeat.

Instead, Kim was off to another team competition, one with arguably higher stakes. As first reported by the AP’s Doug Ferguson, Kim is bound for the Asian Games, where he’ll play for gold, and for a military exemption, alongside two of his South Korean countrymen.

Those Games begin Wednesday in Japan. And so Kim’s flight out of Chicago was scheduled to leave around the same time the U.S. team accepted its trophy.

Before we go further, a word on Kim’s on-course performance this week: He was exceptional. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday he was brilliant alongside his friend and teammate Si Woo Kim, serving as the ham to Si Woo’s egg, the two combining for a 3-1-0 record as the heartbeat of the Internationals. And on Sunday he was even better, going it alone against in-form Wyndham Clark in the second match of the day. Through seven holes he was 1 down. By the 14th hole he was 3 up. That was the final margin, too, as Kim provided the first yellow flag of the day as his side chased its first win in a dozen editions of the Cup.

“Just be relentless. That’s what I had in my heart,” Kim said post-round. “The U.S. is really, really good, and there’s a reason why they’re good. They’re very stacked, and it was a tough task for everyone. I’m just glad I did my part for the team … I’m just very proud. This is probably my best Presidents Cup yet.”

Kim got plenty of love all week from his partner.

“We know very well each other,” Si Woo Kim had said after an earlier session. “He helps me a lot, gives me a lot of confidence, and I think I give him a lot of confidence.”

On Sunday, International captain Geoff Ogilvy sang Kim’s praises, too.

“Tom’s a fantastic player,” he said. “The Kims make an incredible pair. They’re fun to watch. They bring so much energy to this team. And they’re very reliable, and they win us a lot of points … we love having them on our side.”

It just wasn’t quite enough. Kim closed out his match, as did Sungjae Im three matches behind him. But then came a wave of red; the Internationals picked up just a half-point from the final seven matches and watched as their three-point lead turned into a four-point loss.

As for the Asian Games — and everything at stake? In short, able-bodied men in South Korea are required to serve in the military in their 20s. But there are exemptions for some sportsmen and artists. An Olympic medal is one way to receive a pass. (Kim finished 8th in 2024, four shots outside bronze-medal position.) A gold medal at the Asian Games — in either the individual or team competition — is another.

Kim was understandably reluctant to get into the particulars. He was still focused on the Cup at hand, for one thing. For another, military exemptions are a delicate subject. But he said that what the two competitions have in common is playing for a larger purpose.

“I think when you get a chance to represent something more than yourself, it’s always an honor,” he said. “Playing for the [International] Shield, playing for the country, no matter what it is, if it’s bigger than yourself, I think it’s something that’s very honorable and something you should be always grateful for, and I’m very appreciative, and I’m very grateful to make the team this week.

“Personally I think next week, I’m excited to go back to Asia,” he added. “I haven’t been to Asia for so long, so I’m excited to go back home and see some friends and hopefully have a good week.”

Kim was just 20 when he made his Presidents Cup debut in Charlotte; he played all five sessions that week and went 2-3-0. He played four more times in Montreal, going 1-2-1. This week’s 4-1-0 effort brought him over the .500 mark all-time, which is rareified air for the International team. It also elevated his record with Si Woo to a sparkling 5-2-0.

Now comes a different type of team format. Kim will play alongside fellow pro S.H. Kim, who has been playing the Korean PGA since his return home earlier this year, and Doyeob Moon, who played for Korean G.C. on LIV Golf this year.

This is just the second time the Games have welcomed professional golfers. In 2023, the last time they were held, two of Tom Kim’s Presidents Cup teammates this week — Si Woo Kim and Sungjae Im — were part of a team that won by 25 shots.

“I was still scared as [expletive],” Si Woo told Ferguson earlier this year, reflecting on that win.

This week the South Korean team is expecting stiff competition from the host nation; Japan’s team is comprised of current PGA Tour player Keita Nakajima, last year’s Asian Tour winner Kazuki Higa and current Arizona golfer Taishi Moto.

The good news for Kim? He’ll come in knowing his game is good enough to beat the best golfers in the world.

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