Was Mike Weir’s strong play in the Presidents Cup and, especially, his win in the Sunday singles over Tiger Woods an indication of better things to come for the 2003 Masters champion?

Photo: © Mary Schilpp/WireImage Tiger Woods congratulates Mike Weir after losing the final hole and the match 1 down.

Meanwhile, one fact remains. Weir hasn’t won since the 2004 Nissan Open in Los Angeles, almost four years ago. He changed swing coaches a year ago when he elected to get into the Stack and Tilt approach that Mike Bennett and Andy Plummer teach, and which has become both popular and controversial on tour. Weir said all year that his ball-striking has been improving, that he can practice harder because he’s less prone to neck and back problems that had affected him, and that he was on the cusp of good results again. The results came during the Presidents Cup at the Royal Montreal Golf Club, where Weir was the International team’s leading point-getter. He won three and a half of a possible five points. The U.S. team smoked the International side by five points, not that any of the 35,000 people on hand during the singles matches cared. For the Canadians, it was all about Weir against Woods.

Weir took a three-up lead over Woods through 10 holes. He was hitting fairways with his driver time after time, something that has been missing from his game. His iron play was sharp, as were his short game and putting. Weir was playing his best, while Woods wasn’t playing his best. Still, Woods stiffed an iron shot on the 11th to win the hole, and took the 12th, 14th and 15th holes to go one-up over Weir.

Photo: © Scott Halleran/Getty Images Things haven't been exactly perfect for Mike Weir the last couple of years.

All across the course Weir’s supporters started to fear the worst. Sure, they thought, their favourite golfer had showed well for a while. But now they were getting a sickening feeling. The majority was convinced it was all over. Nice try, but no scalp.

Still, it wasn’t as if the landscape, painted all colours on a gorgeous autumn afternoon, had suddenly gone gray. Something festive was still in the air. It was a feeling only Canadians could grasp. Maybe it has something to do with living next door to the United States, but many Canadians have always had something of an inferiority complex when it comes to where they rate compared to Americans. Golf-watchers around the world can’t possibly appreciate what it means to Canadians to have somebody like Weir on the world scene. They can’t possibly appreciate what it meant to Canadians when Weir won the Masters, and how excited they were to see him against Woods at Royal Montreal. They felt down, but not quite out as Woods took the lead.

Maybe Weir could yet pull it off, get a half anyway. The noise level did seem to diminish, if only for a few minutes.

The volume had been turned up all day. Eleven other matches were in progress, but very few people were following them. U.S. captain Jack Nicklaus had said early in the week that “It will be great if Mike Weir played Tiger this time. I think that would be a great match. I think it’s the logical thing to do.” Player liked what he’d seen in Weir. He’d told Weir he’d been reverse-pivoting. Weir decided he’d overdone Stack and Tilt and eased up on it during his backswing.

The Weir-watchers liked what they were seeing that Sunday at Royal Montreal, at least until Woods made his move, accompanied by a couple of mistakes that Weir made on the 14th and 15th holes. The best moment had come when both golfers were circling their putts on the eighth green. Weir had received a standing ovation when he approached the green, and it had finally died down. The sounds of silence filled the space while Weir and Woods surveyed their birdie putts.

Suddenly a voice cut the silence.

“Great to see you too, Tiger,” somebody said from the bleachers behind the green.

Woods couldn’t help but smile. Weir, facing in an opposite direction, also couldn’t suppress a smile. Each golfer then two-putted, and Weir maintained the three-up lead he had at the time.

But then, 90 minutes later, he was a hole down. Still, Weir is nothing if not mentally tough. He’s always said he aspires to playing a Ben Hogan-type game, putting the ball in play and getting it on the greens in the right places. Weir knows he’s not a super-power player, although his new swing and his rigorous workout under the guidance of his trainer Jeff Handler have helped him add distance. He was within 10 or 15 yards of Woods most of their singles match.

Now Weir hit two solid shots on the 15th hole, and halved it with Woods. Still one-down, his shot to the par-three 17th took the slope of the green and finished about 12 feet behind the hole. Woods missed from 15 feet left. Weir made his putt. All square.

Weir drove perfectly into the left centre of the fairway on the last hole. Woods drove into the water left of the fairway, took a drop and ripped a shot from 247 yards right at the flag in the rear right corner of the green, on a plateau. But it came up short in some rough. Weir’s iron was on the money, about 20 feet right of the hole. Woods hit a superb pitch that finished about a foot left of the hole, walked briskly on the green as he took off his cap, and conceded the hole and the match to Weir. They embraced. It had been quite a match. The fans went crazy, screaming “Mikey, Mikey, Mikey.”

This wasn’t the Masters, as some people tried to make it out as after the win. Weir was asked whether the win over Woods meant as much as his win at Augusta. In the flush of victory over the world number one, Weir said, “It’s right there, but obviously, winning the Masters” and then his voice trailed off. Clearly, Weir knew that his Masters win ranked higher. That was a win in a major, his first win in a major, his only win in a major. This was one round, one match.

Photo: © Caryn Levy/WireImage Mike Weir learned a lot in his matchup with Tiger Woods.

Weir acknowledged that he had to play his best to beat the world’s best player, and that Woods hadn’t displayed his top form. He expected Woods to chip in on the last hole, and that he would have to make his birdie putt to win. Weir added of Woods, who was so gracious in losing, “He’s a class act.”

The important thing that came out of the match was that Weir was calm, from the first tee. He didn’t panic when Woods pulled ahead, and remembered that he had lost his focus over the last few holes during the 2004 Canadian Open at the Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ontario. Weir had a two-shot lead there over Vijay Singh with three holes to play, but three-putted from 10 feet on the 16th green and lost in a playoff. The situation and the support overwhelmed him.

Lesson learned. Three years later, Weir didn’t let the crowd get into his head. He was aware of the support, and moved by it. He was stirred, but not shaken. It was in that regard that Weir said that one day far down the road when he looks back on his career, he might feel the win was more special than the Masters. That’s because he showed up so well against Woods in front of Canadians. It was very emotional for him.

“Maybe I’ll feed off this week,” Weir said of how he might perform when he returned to the PGA Tour. “I’d like to finish off the year well. I was determined to battle back. This gives me a lot of confidence for the rest of the year.”

At the same time, Weir confessed that he should be feeling a lot better than he was. He meant that his team had lost. He’d played on his fourth Presidents Cup team, and the International team had only one tie, in 2003 in South Africa, to show for those four events. “It’s a downer,” Weir said.

As for his game, Weir added, “When you finally start hitting it good, it settles everything down.” That’s why he was calm. He’d shown that calmness when he holed a seven-foot par putt on the 72nd green at the Augusta National Golf Club to get into a playoff against Len Mattiace. That putt went in dead centre. Weir heard from thousands of Canadians soon after his Masters win.

He heard from tens of thousands right there at Royal Montreal, all week, and never more loudly than when the match ended. He’s continued to hear from him via his website. “I’m lucky to have this kind of support,” Weir said. “Playing for your home fans, I’ll remember this for the rest of my life.”

He might also remember it as a turning point in his already impressive career.