International aid denied

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This article was published 11/10/2009 (6140 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SAN FRANCISCO — If the Presidents Cup is lost for the International Team, its moments of truth won’t be difficult to pinpoint.

Vijay Singh and his Saturday morning foursomes partner, Robert Allenby, allowed a 1-up lead on Stewart Cink and Hunter Mahan to slip away with a sloppily played 18th, and potential giant killers Mike Weir and Tim Clark fumbled away an upset win over U.S. titans Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker, losing on the last two holes.

And then, as darkness began to descend on a cold day at Harding Park Golf Course, Phil Mickelson and Sean O’Hair fought off a desperate attempt by Singh and the indomitable Tim Clark to get the day’s last point of the afternoon best-ball matches — and the half-point they salvaged put the U.S. firmly in the driver’s seat, 12-1/2 to 9-1/2, heading into today’s 12 singles games.

Taken together, the results turned what could have been a tied set of matches, or even an International lead, into a three-point deficit — and whatever captain Greg Norman might say about his team being “in a good place,” a hole three points deep might prove too difficult to escape.

Even Weir’s afternoon pairing with Ernie Els for an overpowering 5-and-3 best-ball win over Zach Johnson and Justin Leonard couldn’t erase the shadow of his morning collapse at the final two holes.

Weir and Clark — co-heroes of a pair of wonderful Friday rallies — were victims this time, as their hard-earned 1-up lead over Woods and Stricker bled away into a heartbreaking, maybe backbreaking International loss… admittedly with a lot of help from Woods, who was fabulous on those two closing holes after a very ordinary first 16.

Nonetheless, Weir had a five-foot birdie putt to cancel out Woods’ dramatic 22-footer at the 17th, but was so rattled he gunned it eight feet past, not even hitting the hole on his way by.

And then on 18, the match now all-square, Weir hooked his 3-wood approach into the rough right of the green, and watched as Woods put the dagger in with a peerless 3-iron to eight feet, which the world No. 1 punctuated with a full twirl of the club and a flamboyant flourish of the hands, just in case you didn’t see the shot.

“They made a few birdies at the end and some great saves,” said Clark. “There were times when we could have gone 3-up, and had they lost another hole it would have been a different story.”

“We were lucky we weren’t three or four down,” Woods admitted.

Those two U.S. rescue jobs — or International nosedives, depending on your point of view — more than cancelled out the inspired play of the Asian duo of Cup rookies Y.E. Yang and teenage phenom Ryo Ishikawa, who hammered Kenny Perry and Zach Johnson 3-and-2 in alternate-shot, then took Woods and Stricker to the 16th hole in an afternoon match in which Stricker made seven birdies, including five one-putts in a six-hole stretch at one point.

“He was a stud all day,” said Woods. “I helped out on three holes — 17 and 18 this morning, and (the close-out hole) here. Otherwise, I was cheerleading.”

“The putter was obviously my friend this afternoon,” Stricker said. “What he did this morning made me really want to step up and do something special.”

Singh — who is now the all-time leading Presidents Cup point-getter, having played every match in all eight editions — and the short-hitting Clark were 2-up on Mickelson and O’Hair after 11 holes in the day’s critical last match. But Mickelson’s short-iron wizardry and putting, and a couple of timely contributions by O’Hair, whittled the lead away and Clark, who carried Singh all day, had to be brilliant to deny Mickelson a fourth straight full point.

As it stands, the world’s top three players — Woods, Mickelson and Stricker, all American — have combined records of 11-0-1 and their confidence is soaring; all the more reason for Weir to rue letting Woods and Stricker off the hook in the morning, and Singh doing the same for Mickelson in the afternoon.

The International team had chances to win three of the four team-play sessions, but didn’t win any — tying the four-ball matches 3-3 on Friday, and 2-1/2 to 2-1/2 on Saturday.

The U.S. team needs to take only five of the 12 singles matches today to win the Cup. The Internationals need eight points. None of the matches can end in a tie unless the winner has already been decided.

“We had a good match today,” Mickelson said of the day’s finale. “Tim on his own ball was somewhere in the low 60s. Sean and I fought hard to stay in this match. I think both sides would have loved to win it with a birdie at the end there, but it was a long hard day and we’ve got another one (Sunday).”

— Canwest News Service