Korea is the first Asian host of the event, which has been held in Australia, Canada, South Africa and the U.S.
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“I think a lot of times, everybody, all designers go through cycles of when they do different things”. Kind of like shooting a low round in the first round of a tournament; there’s a lot of golf to be played.
Since the inaugural edition of the Cup in 1994, the United States have beaten a team of global players minus Europeans in eight events and tied once, their only defeat coming at the 1998 competition at Royal Melbourne.
The South African duo of Louis Oosthuizen and Branden Grace won the only match for the global side.
“I was pretty (upset) I didn’t get picked”, Johnson said with a laugh. He’s one of our leaders and one of the leaders, best leaders I’ve been around.
“That was my whole goal”, Watson said.
“You want guys out here who are wanting to play”. Those 10 points are going to set the tone for the match and those first two days will be very important.
Nicklaus earlier told reporters to laughter that changes had been made to the greens because “I made it too tough to start with”.
Dustin Johnson hasn’t lost a match while playing for the United States in almost four years. It’s about making putts, winning holes and piling up points. It was the first win for Grace in the Presidents Cup after going 0-4 two years ago.
The Fowler-Walker pairing was the most impressive, as it defeated Thongchai Jaidee and Anirban Lahiri in a matchup that was no contest from the outset.
Fowler and Walker halved all three of their matches together at the Ryder Cup. “But the point is, we’re out there smiling because we believe whatever matchup we want to put together, we believe we can beat the other team”.
The highlight of the day was Mickelson holing a 45-foot trademark bunker blast for a birdie at the 13th after a rare wayward approach from the British Open champion Johnson. Mickelson will partner Zach Johnson against Jason Day and Steven Bowditch in Thursday’s foursomes. After one day, maybe having one less match on Thursday helped.
It certainly wasn’t fun for the Internationals, who come from countries not eligible for the European side in the Ryder Cup.
On the par-5 finishing hole, Mickelson launched a 327-yard drive that split the fairway, and Johnson hit his approach to seven feet from the hole.
Day’s eagle try sat on the lip, but even that wasn’t enough for the Americans to need to putt and the concession ensured the late rally proved ultimately fruitless in a 2-down loss. The US played really well…. The Americans closed it out on the 15th hole. As two of the longest players on the PGA Tour, they’d put on a show and gain a huge advantage over the opposition at the same time.
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The fourth match pits USA’s Bubba Watson and J.B. Holmes against Bowditch and Marc Leishman.
