By John Huggan
It’s a great idea. An obvious idea. And now it is going to happen. Driven by the formidable pair of 2006 U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy and former European Tour player Mike Clayton, the inaugural Sandbelt Invitational will take place Dec. 20-23. Four of Melbourne’s world-famous collection of courses—Royal Melbourne, Kingston Heath, Peninsula Kingswood and Yarra Yarra—will host one round each in a 72-hole event with 60-strong mixture of male and female pros and amateurs, a relatively low-key start to what both men hope will evolve into one of Australia’s biggest tournaments.

The potential is obvious, the philosophy novel in a world typically driven only by financial matters. Yes, Ogilvy’s eponymous foundation is kicking in a $50,000 (Australian) purse—and other sponsors will hopefully be in place by December. But for now the motivation is more altruistic than economic.

“Clayts has to take most of the credit for the idea,” Ogilvy told Golf Digest. “A couple of months ago we heard that the Australian Open was unlikely to happen [the men’s and women’s events were officially cancelled last week for the second year due to the pandemic], at which point Mike decided we had to have something in its place. We’ve been doing a few little things over the last few months, one-day 18-hole events that gave promising youngsters opportunities to play some competitive golf. So he called round a few clubs in Melbourne to see if we could expand that to a four-day deal.”

It didn’t take long. Ogilvy describes the reaction as “unbelievable.” Royal Melbourne was in straight away. Peninsula said yes within 30 seconds. Yarra Yarra and Kingston Heath followed quickly, too.

“Once we had the clubs involved, we sat down and thought about the field,” Ogilvy said. “The actual breakdown isn’t too clear right now because of COVID travel restrictions, so we’ll have to see how that pans out. But we’ll have the best field we can get, both men and women, professionals and amateurs.”

That concept, too, is an extension of what the Ogilvy/Clayton team has been doing with what they call “the game,” a series of one-day 18-hole events with men and women competing against each other designed to provide promising young Australians with competitive opportunities in these trying times.

“I want to make it clear the Sandbelt Invitational is not going to be like a ‘normal’ event,” says Clayton, who, much to the amusement of all who know him, will be “tournament director.” “Not yet anyway. It’s not going to be on television. There won’t be too many spectators. There won’t be any roped-off fairways or scoreboards. It’s all about getting the best players we can find competing with each other again. But the real stars of the show will be the courses. It’s not an event built round star names, which has been the norm down here for a few years.”

Michael Dodge
Ogilvy hopes the Sandbelt Invitational can provide playing opportunities for local golfers who have been limited in events they can compete in due to travel restrictions during the pandemic.

Disappointingly, it would seem unlikely that the leading Australians on the PGA Tour—Marc Leishman, Cam Smith and Adam Scott—will be able to tee-up this year. But the reaction from Ogilvy and Clayton’s fellow pros has been, as you might expect, unanimously positive.

“What a treat this will be, undeniably one of the best collection of golf courses worldwide,” said former Ryder Cup player Nicolas Colsaerts (whose wife is Australian) in a tweet.

Japanese Tour player Matt Griffin was even more effusive.

“Since the halcyon days of the 1990s, Australian golf has been all about who is not here rather than who is,” said the native Melburnian. “This announcement is the perfect example that it might be time to celebrate who is here rather than who isn’t. We have a heap of talent that’s been starved of big tournaments for 24 months desperate to prove itself. If you forget about the names, the product is basically the same and possibly even better, as the Vic Open has proved.”

Speaking of which, the Sandbelt Invitational will offer exemptions into both the Vic Open (a mixed-event sanctioned by the European Tour and the LPGA) and, for the men, the Australian PGA Championship. Already, legitimacy is growing.

“I really hope this will expand every year, to the point where it becomes a really big and important event,” says Clayton, one of golf’s most erudite and thoughtful commentators on all things architectural. “But we don’t need a huge purse at this stage. That only raises expectations, ones we can’t meet because of all the travel restrictions in place. Players from Western Australia, for example, can’t come to Melbourne right now. So the money doesn’t really matter that much.

“People have criticised Golf Australia for cancelling the Australian Open. But our event is different. We’re not comparing apples with apples. We don’t have to deal with sponsors or television. We have no expectations. All we’re trying to do this year is run an ‘amateur’ tournament with good players on great courses. And we’ll see how it goes.”

The post How a former U.S. Open champ got four iconic Australian courses to commit to innovative new event appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dave Shedloski
MELBOURNE — Although the United States continues to dominate the Presidents Cup, including Sunday’s 16-14 victory that gave the Americans their eighth win in a row in the series, this 13th edition at Royal Melbourne was the second straight road game that was much more difficult than anticipated, after the one-point decision in South Korea in 2015.

Despite a record seven rookies on the team, the Internationals captained by Ernie Els put a real scare into the Americans. Els, relying heavily on statistical analytics, managed the International team to a 10-8 advantage heading into Sunday’s 12 singles matches. That was his goal. The Internationals had not compiled double figures in points in team play since they entered the final day of the 2005 matches, tied at 11—and that’s when there were four more team matches than today.

But on Sunday, when the players had to venture out on their own to earn a point, the Americans were overwhelmingly superior.

The U.S. team didn’t have to orchestrate a desperate or frenzied rally, but it did have to dig deep to record the first Sunday comeback in Presidents Cup history. “They went out there and got the points we needed,” said Tiger Woods, who as playing captain got one of them in the opening match against Abraham Ancer. “We fought. Even the points we lost, we were making them earn every one of them, and this Cup wasn’t going to be given to us. We had to go earn it, and we did.”

Several factors impacted the final outcome. Things had to break right, not only on Sunday (though mostly) for the U.S. to pull this one out. Here are some of the things that impacted the final outcome:

1. AMERICA OWNED THE 18TH HOLE.
Four key putts on Thursday and Friday either won the U.S. a full point or earned a half. It kept the International team, which gained confidence from an impressive 4-1 first-day lead, from pulling away. The last of those, by Tony Finau in the final four-ball match Saturday morning, kept the U.S. within four points going into their favorite format—foursomes, where the Yanks own a monstrous 50½-20½ advantage throughout the history of the event. Sure enough, the U.S. won three points, and almost won four. That scenario set up the Sunday comeback, the first in Presidents Cup history. “Absolutely, that was something. I wouldn’t say we totally lost momentum, but it was, to me, I felt it was a bit of a blow,” Els said. “The team didn’t react in that way which I was really proud of, but me as captain, and I didn’t reveal it to them, but I felt we had them right in the headlock, and we didn’t quite finish it off on that particular time.”

2. PATRICK REED GOT REVIVED
Who knows what goes through this guy’s mind, but he does have his clutch moments when least expected. Downtrodden after three losses with Webb Simpson, and smarting from a constant tongue-lashing from the partisan gallery, Reed, without his regular caddie, whom the PGA Tour benched on Sunday after an altercation with a fan, summoned his best golf of the week and the most brilliant effort this side of his captain. He birdied six of his first seven holes for a 6-up lead on C.T. Pan, and that early flurry was enough for what was a consequential win. Reed’s point put America ahead for the first time since a 1-0 lead on Thursday with Woods and Thomas winning the opening four-ball match.

Daniel Pockett/Getty Images
Reed responded on Sunday while playing with a replacement caddie, his swing coach Kevin Kirk.

3. DEPTH BEAT ANALYTICS
On Saturday night Els conceded the obvious, that “the U.S. team is deeper,” and he schemed to put out a lineup that could produce the 5½ points necessary to win the Cup. He wasn’t in any way disregarding the talent on his team. It was just fact. So he sacrificed a few players, like the struggling Haotong Li having to face Dustin Johnson. The former U.S. Open winner cruised to a 4-and-3 victory. Though the International team can draw from a bigger pool, the U.S. team has been deeper for years, which is why previous International captain Nick Price argued vociferously to decrease the number of matches from 34 to 30 before the 2017 edition at Liberty National. It didn’t matter that year as the Americans won in a romp. The Internationals fought much more bravely this week, but U.S. depth couldn’t be countered in singles.

4. THE TIGER CAPTAINCY FACTOR
Long ago it was thought that when Jack Nicklaus served as Ryder Cup captain, the first time at age 43, same age as Woods is now, the players who played under him were more than a little intimidated by the presence of the 18-time major winner. He was still very much a contemporary as well as a legend. The players on this Presidents Cup team didn’t harbor the same fears or emotions in relation to Woods, the playing captain this week. As one observer on the team plane put it: “They love Tiger, and they love the idea of playing for Tiger. He has let his guard down with these younger guys, and they are eating it up and will go through a wall for him.” Playing with inspiration instead of with hesitation is a huge difference. It showed.

5. THE TIGER PLAYING FACTOR
Well, if you’re going to make yourself a captain’s pick, you better be ready to perform. And he was. He walked the walk. Woods tried to set the tone in the first match of the week, going out with Justin Thomas in four-ball. They won. The Internationals captured the other four matches. He decided to go out again with Thomas in foursomes the next day and won again. Then he led the way in singles by going out first and putting a U.S. point on the board against Abraham Ancer. If anyone saw the opening tee shot, the whole sequence, they would have witnessed Woods blasting a drive and then emphatically turning his back before watching the ball land. There was real attitude there. He wasn’t going to be beaten. This time, he did set the tone.

6. THE COUPLES FACTOR
No one gives this much thought, but Fred Couples has been captain or assistant captain every year since 2009. If he is not the coolest 60-year-old since Frank Sinatra, then he is definitely the coolest 60-year-old golfer. Although Steve Stricker, the winning Presidents Cup captain in 2017, was the acting captain whenever Woods picked up his clubs as player, there is no more calming influence than Couples, the laid-back former Masters champion, who like U.S. rookie Gary Woodland was first a team sports athlete—and a good one—who seems to understand what being a manager or coach is all about. “When Tiger asked me to be captain, it was like all the players, it’s an honor. But it’s pretty edgy,” Couples said. “And he kept saying to me, ‘How did you do this, how did you do this?’ I said, ‘You’ve got to keep watching and the points are going to come, and you’re just got to believe in every one.’ ” Wise words. Woods repeatedly said the last few days, that he had “trust” in his players.

Ben Jared
Couples celebrates with Woods after the Americans iced the victory on Sunday.

7. PICKS COME THROUGH
Playing off the trust factor, Woods’ four captains picks played a major role in the victory and were placed in key positions on Sunday. Tony Finau and Reed followed Woods onto the course in singles. Rickie Fowler, who replaced injured Brooks Koepka, was in the anchor spot. They won two points, with Finau gaining a half-point in the second game by rallying from 4 down to tie Hideki Matsuyama. Only Woodland lost in singles, but he scored 1½ points for the week. In fact, all four picks had at least a point. All were crucial in the end. The win was, as Woods said, a collective effort.

The post Seven things that broke right on Sunday for the Americans appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The American juggernaut, kept in check through the first three days by an inspired International team, overwhelmed the hosts in singles, capturing eight of 12 points for a 16-14 victory that had Woods choked with emotion. The man whose career has been defined by his individual brilliance was crying tears of joy after orchestrating a team triumph that was much more difficult than most would have imagined.

Of course, he still contributed with impeccable play, winning all three of his matches in helping the U.S. become the first team to win the Presidents Cup after trailing going into singles. He led off by handling Abraham Ancer, 3 and 2, and finished as the only unbeaten and untied player on either team. It was hard to argue he wasn’t the man of the match.

It was the perfect ending of the year for Woods, one in which he won the Masters for his first major title in more than a decade and then later captured his 82nd PGA Tour title in Japan to match Sam Snead’s all-time record.

At 43 the youngest captain in Presidents Cup history and only the second playing captain, he wasn’t about to take all of the credit, though.

“We did it together,” Woods, sniffling, said after the victory was secured by Matt Kuchar in the penultimate match. “We came here as a team. My teammates and my boys all played well. The [assistant] captains did an amazing job of just being there for every little detail. I couldn’t have done it without all their help and all my boys. They did it.”

Kuchar gets credit for the winning point, or, in this case, the half-point, that pushed America over the top. After falling 3 down after three holes to South Africa’s Louis Oosthuizen, Kuchar sank a five-foot putt on the 17th hole to go 1 up. Because he could do no worse than tie, that stoke ensured that the U.S. would retain the cup for the eighth straight time.

But so much work already had been completed by the Americans in front of him. The U.S. won six of the first 10 matches and halved two others. Overall, the International team could count just two wins, by rookies Sungjae Im of Korea and Australia’s Cameron Smith.

“We were right there at the end, but just a couple of matches didn’t go our way,” said a dejected International captain Ernie Els, whose side led 10-8 on Saturday, only the third time the Internationals had held a lead through the team sessions. “The Americans just played really great golf. They made the putts when they needed to, and they got some crucial wins throughout the day.

“We’re getting closer,” he added. “We’ve just got to keep it up.”

Perhaps closer only made it harder to swallow.

“I’m optimistic about the future, and I can’t wait to play in one of these again in two years,” said Adam Scott, who has yet to be part of a winning team in his nine starts. “But at the moment it’s hard to digest. It’s incredibly disappointing. We had a good game plan, and it was working.”

Until it didn’t. Which became obvious very early on another overcast day. The Americans wasted no time nosing ahead. They put the first three points on the board and never trailed thereafter.

Leading off, Woods found himself in a back-and-forth tussle with Ancer, who played impressively in his debut. But the Mexican was no match for the No. 6 player in the world on the inward nine, succumbing to a series of brilliant iron shots and clutch putts. Woods, who converted seven birdies, finished off Ancer in style by guiding home a pure 20-footer for birdie at the 16th for the first American point.

Woods, 7-2 in singles, registered his 27th victory, surpassing Phil Mickelson for most wins in Presidents Cup history. Woods finished undefeated for the second time in his nine appearances. In his three trips to Royal Melbourne, he was a member of the only losing U.S. team, in 1998, and scored the winning point in 2011. This week, he put an exclamation point on things.

“My responsibility as a player is whenever the captain said to go out and play, go earn a point,” Woods said.

And the points kept rolling in. Dustin Johnson, playing the fourth game but finishing soon after Woods, led from the third hole and beat China’s Haotong Li, 4 and 3, bringing the matches to a tie for the first time since the outset.

USA took its first lead since it won the opening match, and wouldn’t you know it would be Patrick Reed doing the honors by blitzing C.T. Pan, 4 and 2, for an 11-10 edge. Reed birdied his first four holes and six of his first seven for a 6-up lead, and although Pan fought back with four wins, he was just too far down to catch Reed, who had his swing coach, Kevin Kirk, on his bag. Kirk stepped in for Kessler Karain, Reed’s brother-in-law and regular caddie, who got into an altercation with a fan on Saturday and was not allowed to work the singles match.

“The biggest thing we did today that we didn’t do earlier in the week is, we didn’t get on top,” said Reed, who won his first singles match in the Presidents Cup. “Today was a new day. I knew coming out that I had to go out and play golf, especially going out early. Had to go out and get red on the board and earn my point and try to keep momentum on our side and get the guys going.”

The Internationals finally got on the board when rookie Sungjae Im of Korea beat U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland, winning five of the last seven holes for a 4-and-3 decision.

After Bryson DeChambeau and Adam Hadwin tied, the Americans went on a run. Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, who played together in all four team sessions, got wins against Joaquin Niemann and Scott, respectively. Then Webb Simpson earned his first victory of the week by dispatching former U.S. Amateur champion Byeong Hun An, 2 and 1.

Simpson’s point ensured that the U.S. would do no worse than share the cup.

Aussie Cameron Smith, one of a record seven rookies on the International team, kept hopes alive for that scenario when he rallied from 3 down to stun Justin Thomas, 2 and 1. It was the second match in a row that Thomas, the highest ranked player for either team at No. 4 in the world, couldn’t hold a big lead. He and Rickie Fowler let a 5-up lead to Ancer and Marc Leishman dissolve in foursomes, resulting in a halve.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited and then kind of really gutted in the space of a few minutes,” Smith said.

That’s because Kuchar soon delivered the dagger that the Internationals had managed to stave off for much of the week. Playing in his fifth Presidents Cup, the former U.S. Amateur champion had been 0-4 in singles until halving with Oosthuizen. That he didn’t win was immaterial. He knew what the putt on 17 meant to the overall outcome, and he said that he felt like “leaping out of my skin with joy” at the moment.

“To do that was such a thrill and something I’m proud of,” said Kuchar, 41, the second-oldest player on the U.S. team behind the playing captain.

In the day’s final match, Fowler bogeyed the last hole to halve with Leishman. It was just a formality that determined the final margin.

Nothing was a formality as far as the U.S. captain was concerned. This meant a lot. You could see it on his face and the faces of the rest of the American contingent. You could see it in the heartfelt hugs he shared with his players and his three assistant captains. He was reveling in one more accomplishment. He tried to put it into context with the rest of his unparalleled career.

“It’s just so exciting for me to be a part of this,” he said, beaming. “It’s truly an experience I will cherish forever.”

The post The Americans pull off historic Sunday comeback at Royal Melbourne appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

But the plucky International team flipped the script a bit at the very end just as it appeared the Americans were on the verge of their own rewrite. There weren’t simply a few momentum swings. Emotions swished back and forth like water churned in a bathtub.

On a chilly and gray day at Royal Melbourne Golf Club, the Internationals eked out two half-points, one of them achieved via a miraculous rally by Marc Leishman and rookie Abraham Ancer against the seemingly invincible Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler. Were it not for these late heroics by the home team, this Presidents Cup would be tied going into Sunday singles.

Instead, the Internationals managed to cling to a lead they have held since the first session, taking a 10-8 advantage to bed with them. They have not led on a Saturday night since 2003 in South Africa, the lone meeting that resulted in a tie that couldn’t be broken after three sudden-death holes between Woods and Ernie Els, this year’s captains.

Is that important? From a historical standpoint, it might have been highly consequential. No team has come from behind to win the Presidents Cup.

ATT KUCHAR“It looked like [the lead] was going to be wiped away, and the guys absolutely played with their guts out, and I could not be more proud and more happy for those guys in that cabin tonight,” Els said. “They are as excited as you could ever see a team be, losing a session 3-1, I can tell you. It was some unbelievable golf, and my hat’s off to those guys.”

RELATED: The Sunday singles pairings at the Presidents Cup

Fielding a record seven rookies, the International team saw its newcomers rise to the challenge when it appeared the Americans would sweep foursomes—a format they have dominated in the Presidents Cup by the tune of a 30-point advantage—and erase all of the four-point lead the Internationals had so assiduously built in the first three sessions. That included another strong four-ball performance in the morning that stretched their lead from three to four points, 9-5.

All of this unfolded with Woods never picking up a club all day.

Sticking to his plan and believing in his players, Woods sat himself for both Saturday sessions, a move that was a surprise to many, including his counterpart Els. The decision to forgo the afternoon foursomes matches seemed particularly odd considering that the Internationals won 2½ points in morning four-ball to retake the momentum and that Woods was playing well, going 2-0 in his first two matches with Thomas.

The captain was unmoved. “You have to do what’s best for the team,” he said.

The decision appeared to be validated when the U.S. surged ahead in all four foursomes matches. At one point, each of the U.S. duos led by multiple holes. In the first match, Dustin Johnson won his first point of the week, teaming with Gary Woodland to put down Adam Scott and Louis Oosthuizen, 2 and 1. After trailing by three holes, Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele finished off Cameron Smith and Sungjae Im by the same score in the day’s third foursomes match.

Those were hard-fought wins. In between was a match the U.S. was leading handily to soon bring the score to 9-8. Thomas and Fowler, the only U.S. winners in the morning four-ball, built a 5-up lead through seven holes on Leishman and Ancer. They still led by five with eight holes left. They led by three with four to play and Ancer needing to drop a 21-footer to extend the match. He nailed it.

From there, the American duo made a series of missteps to help keep the match going. They bogeyed the last three holes while the International pair made every putt they needed, including a six-footer at the last by Ancer to secure a shocking half-point. The mood among the boisterous crowd shifted.

“To fight back from 5 down, pretty amazing feeling,” said Leishman, one of three Australians on the squad, who came into the match with an overall record of 4-9-3.

“I just believed. We kept believing,” said Mexico’s Ancer, who remained unbeaten in four outings in his debut. “We told ourselves that we were going to keep going at it, and we were going to fight until the end. We were not just going to give up.”

Thomas said he was left nearly speechless by the outcome. “It’s absolutely unacceptable for us to get a half-point.”

Added Fowler: “That’s the way match play goes. We flipped them a few times on 18 yesterday, and just gives us a little bit more work to do tomorrow.”

Soon they found themselves with a little bit more work after Matt Kuchar and Tony Finau let a 2-up lead slip away in the final five holes. They never trailed and yet could very well have lost if Byeong Hun An had curled in a seven-footer for a winning birdie on 18. It burned the left edge. On the previous two holes, Niemann and An sank par saves of 20 and seven feet, respectively, to keep the match all square.

“It was a grind out there,” said Niemann, 21, of Chile. “We fight until the last hole, and we got the half-point. That’s big.”

With the momentum volleying back and forth, each side claimed the psychological upper hand at day’s end.

“It was unbelievable. You talk about coming back from the dead,” Els said.

“There was a point today where it looked like it may be 9-1 Internationals,” Kuchar said, referring actually to Friday’s foursomes when the Internationals led briefly in all five matches. But no matter.

“For us to be sitting here at 10-8, certainly feel good,” Kuchar added. “We’d rather be in the International position right now, but for us to be staring at 9-1 as a potential position to now be at 10-8, I think the guys in the locker room feel awfully good about what we were able to do today.”

Woods later echoed that talking point, only to draw an eye roll from Els, who responded, “You are the absolute optimist, aren’t you?”

Earlier in the day, the Internationals widened their lead by a point, but once again it was the Americans, as they did on Friday, holing another crucial putt at the 18th to avoid getting farther adrift. Finau did the honours from seven feet, lifting him and Kuchar into a tie with Scott and An.

In the other three matches, the International team won twice while the USA captured the opener as Thomas improved to 3-0 after a 3-and-2 victory with Fowler over Leishman and Haotong Li, who was playing his first match.

Im and Ancer had all the answers against Cantlay and Schauffele, leading from the eighth hole onward to win, 3 and 2. Behind them, Hideki Matsuyama and C.T. Pan were way too much for Patrick Reed and Webb Simpson, leading throughout in a 5-and-3 triumph to win for a second time together. The U.S. duo slipped to 0-3, and Reed lost for the fifth time in a row in team play dating to last year’s Ryder Cup.

Reed’s caddie, Kessler Karain, was involved in an altercation with a fan shortly after their match ended, and the PGA Tour said in a statement that Karain would not be allowed to caddie for Reed, his brother-in-law, in today’s singles session. A replacement caddie had not yet been named on Saturday night. Reed faces Pan in the third match at 10:24 a.m. local time, 6:24 p.m EST.

The post International team stakes a two-point lead after a long, emotional Saturday appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dave Shedloski
MELBOURNE — Tiger Woods finally decided it was time he benched his best player.

That would be himself.

After winning twice with Justin Thomas, Woods will be a spectator for today’s morning four-ball matches, sticking with a script predetermined from the start of this Presidents Cup. Though his team trails, 6½-3½, Woods is eschewing the playing portion of his dual role as playing captain, content to let his U.S. team score some points without him.

He’ll send Thomas out today with fellow Jupiter, Fla., resident Rickie Fowler in the first match, against Australia’s Marc Leishman and rookie Haotong Li of China, who will be making his first start of the week.

“Yeah, that was kind of the game plan. It would be hard for me to go all the sessions,” Woods, 43, said after making his four selections for the third session, which begins at 7:02 a.m. local time, 4:02 p.m. EST Friday in the States. “I’ve been fortunate enough to go out there with JT, and we’ve gotten two points. JT played great, and Rickie played awesome this afternoon. They have had success before, and send them back out.”

RELATED: Americans still trail by three, but avert disaster with a late rally

Thomas and Fowler won 2½ points together two years ago at Liberty National, so Woods has to feel comfortable with that combo.

As for his comfort level with himself wearing the captain’s cap solely for the first time during competition, that was another story. “I know I’ll be stressed out watching these guys play,” he said.

One of two pairings he wasn’t willing to break up is that of rookies Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay, who evened their record to 1-1 with their 1-up foursomes victory on Friday. They’ll go out again at 7:16 a.m. against fellow newcomers from the International side Sungjae Im of Korea and Abraham Ancer of Mexico. Ancer already is 2-0 this week, and Im won a four-ball point with Adam Hadwin on Thursday.

Whatever Woods sees in Webb Simpson and Patrick Reed, who are 0-2, only he knows because in their 34 holes together they have trailed for 28 of them and led for one. Reed, who seems to have dug himself a deeper hole with his “shovelling” antics on the 11th hole on Friday, now has lost five of his last six matches in the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, including 0-4 in team play. They’ll take on Japan’s Hideki Matsuyama and C.T. Pan of Chinese Taipei in the third match. It’s the first pairing International captain Ernie Els has used more than once.

Woods defended his choice of again using his winless duo, saying, “They have played well and paired well. Unfortunately, they just haven’t won points.”

Which kind of is, you know, the goal. But never mind.

“They have done all the little things right,” he added. “It’s just a matter of having things go your way, and that’s part of playing these team sessions. You know, a putt here, a shot here or there, or you just get outplayed, it happens. But these guys have paired up really well. They are excited about being with one another, and they have handled everything extremely well.”

Speaking of doing things extremely well, Adam Scott, the veteran Aussie playing under enormous pressure here at home, has played brilliantly thus far in winning twice. He, too, will be a part of a winning team from earlier in the week, rejoining Byeong Hun An of South Korea, with whom he triumphed in four-ball on Thursday.

Though the Americans felt like they had the momentum going into the third session after pulling out a rally for 2½ points, Els wasn’t thinking that way.

“That 4-1 lead was a little like having a six-shot lead in a tournament,” he said. “You know, you might let your guard down just a little bit. But then you reset the next day and get after it again, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Saturday Morning Four-ball
Match 11: Marc Leishman/Haotong Li (INT) vs. Justin Thomas/Rickie Fowler (USA), 7:02 a.m. Australia/3:02 p.m. ET Friday
Match 12: Sungjae Im/Abraham Ancer (INT) vs. Xander Schauffele/Patrick Cantlay (USA), 7:16 a.m. Australia/3:16 p.m. ET Friday
Match 13: Hideki Matsuyama/C.T. Pan (INT) vs. Patrick Reed/Webb Simpson (USA), 7:30 a.m. Australia/3:30 p.m. ET Friday
Match 14: Adam Scott/Byeong Hun An (INT) vs. Matt Kuchar/Tony FInau (USA), 7:44 a.m. Australia/3:44 p.m. ET Friday

The post Captain Tiger Woods will sit Tiger in morning matches, teams Justin Thomas with Rickie Fowler appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Huggan
MELBOURNE — There was no sign of Steve McQueen. Or his motorbike. But the late movie star’s compatriots pulled off their mini-version of “The Great Escape” on Day 2 of the 13th Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne. Already 4-1 adrift after Thursday’s four-balls session and at one time down in all five of Friday’s foursomes, the American side somehow contrived to get out of the session all square. Thus, the deficit against the International side remains a just-about manageable three points, 6½-3½.

Perspective, of course, is everything. Though the collective glint in the eyes of the Americans surely spoke to their feeling that this was a great result, the Internationals were understandably struggling to see the eventual 2½-2½ split as a positive.

Although his face was brave and his words positive, International captain Ernie Els was clearly a little deflated by close of play.

“I’ve got to look at where we are,” Els said. “It’s easy to look at where we could have been, because it was looking really unbelievable. But we’re still in a very good position. And hey, look at the record we’ve had in foursomes over the last 25 years. For us to come out even in the session is like a win for us. We would have taken that at the start of the day.”

The momentum shifts—all three—came late as the home team’s early momentum dissipated amid a flurry of U.S. birdies. Playing alongside Xander Schauffele, Patrick Cantlay provided the first, holing from 15 feet on the 18th green for a match-clinching birdie against Adam Hadwin and Joaquin Niemann. Coming from 1 down with four to play, it was just the sort of flip the American side desperately needed.

And there was more. From maybe three feet farther away and almost exactly on Cantlay’s line, Justin Thomas made another birdie putt to claim another unlikely point for the visitors against Byeong Hun An and Hideki Matsuyama. It’s safe to say Thomas’ partner and captain, Tiger Woods, was rather pleased by that outcome. Only rarely has the 15-time major champion been more animated.

“We were both screaming,” Woods said. “It was a phenomenal moment, and it was priceless. So I’m glad we were able to experience it together.

“At one point, we were down in all five matches, so it looked pretty bleak, but the guys turned it around,” Woods said. “They played phenomenal coming in. It was important for us to end the way we did, and it totally changed the last hour.”

Still the Americans were not done. Two down with three to play against Cameron Smith and Sungjae Im, Gary Woodland and Rickie Fowler birdied the 16th and 17th to tie the match. But even then there was one more bullet to dodge. After Im’s narrow miss for birdie and the match on the closing green, Fowler resolutely holed from four feet for what had, for long enough, appeared an unlikely half.

“It’s better than a loss, that’s for sure,” said Fowler, celebrating his 31st birthday on Friday. “We wanted to keep stretching them. I felt like we gave them a couple of holes with three-putts. We definitely could have been a little better on the greens, but we made some great putts coming in.”

All of that endlessly fascinating back and forth only underlined the truism that foursomes has forever been golf’s darkest art. The most unforgiving form of the most unforgiving game, a place where concealment is all but impossible. With only one ball in play, there is nowhere to hide. Post-play guilt is every misplay’s companion. Every bad shot counts. Every bad shot is laid bare.

Foursomes—in which one member of each partnership tees off on the odd-numbered holes, the other on the evens—also represents the most volatile format within any team contest. Holes tend to change hands almost constantly, a likelihood enhanced by the slickness of the Royal Melbourne greens. Three-putting, another perennial feature of foursomes play, was commonplace. By way of illustration, only 37 of the 86 holes completed in the five matches were halved. So there was a lot going on, from the initial dominance of the International team and the eventual awakening of the Americans.

Still, for all that his team rescued a potentially disastrous situation, and while there is no doubt that Woods more than merits his playing role, many will now be questioning his off-course decision-making and leadership. Given the lethargy displayed by so many of the 12-man lineup, arriving in Australia as late as Monday afternoon after a 26-hour flight from the Bahamas seems more and more like utter folly. Some might even say arrogant.

Whatever the ultimate verdict on the Woods captaincy—the eventual destination of the trophy will have much to do with that—a catalog of near-total disaster ensued early for the Americans. For one thing, Dustin Johnson’s participation in these matches is already looking like just one more mistake. Four months on from his last competitive outing, the former U.S. Open champion has lost twice and has yet to see the last two holes on the Royal Melbourne composite course. Teamed with Matt Kuchar, Johnson lamely capitulated to the solid play of Louis Oosthuizen and Adam Scott by 3 and 2.

“Our job as the older guys on the team is to get the youngsters fired up,” said Oosthuizen, 37. “We are just trying to lead by example.”

Sadly, the same cannot be said for Patrick Reed, another pointless performer after two matches. Paired alongside Webb Simpson for a second time, the 2018 Masters champion went down weakly by 4 and 3 to Marc Leishman and Abraham Ancer. Which was bad enough. But Reed further tarnished his reputation with an exaggerated digging action on the 11th green after making a putt. No matter the provocation, or the state of the match, or the quality of his play, reminding the world of his sand-moving indiscretion seemed like a less than judicious move.

The post Americans still trail by three, but avert disaster with a late rally appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dave Shedloski
MELBOURNE — Ernie Els is bracing for an American resurgence Friday during the second session of this 13th Presidents Cup. He knows his International team might have stirred the heavily favoured Americans out of their slumber after taking a surprising 4-1 lead Thursday at Royal Melbourne.

“We have to keep our jets down. There’s a long way to go, and we know they’re going to come back strong,” said the International captain, who obviously was pleased with his team’s first-day effort, which he called “heroic against a strong American team.”

Interestingly, as historically effective as his team performed, Els stuck to his game plan and broke up every pairing from the first day with the format changing from four-ball to foursomes. It’s a bold strategy that is not without risk.

“We’ve gone this route, and we keep going,” said Els, who is relying heavily on statistical analytics to make his pairings, an approach the European team used effectively against the United States a year ago in a Ryder Cup route outside Paris.

RELATED: Ernie Els pushes the right buttons on Day 1 at Royal Melbourne

Perhaps to quell an early U.S. uprising, Els is marching out his veterans in the first foursomes match, putting together Adam Scott and Louis Oosthuizen to counter the U.S. pair of Dustin Johnson and Matt Kuchar, who went 2-0 in foursomes two years ago at Liberty National and halved a foursomes match together here in 2011.

Scott, 39, and Oosthuizen, 37, have never been paired in match play. Both men played splendidly on Thursday in victory.

Woods, the playing captain for the U.S., waited until the fourth foursomes match to venture out again as a player, rejoining Justin Thomas, the only winning pair on the first day. Woods is 11-4-1 in foursomes in the Presidents Cup. They face Byeong Hun An and Hideki Matsuyama.

“As far as the timing of when I went out there, it was based on what we thought would be best for the guys leading off playing in foursomes. We’ve had a thought process of this kind of going into it,” Woods said.

In the day’s second match, Adam Hadwin and Joaquin Niemann take on Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay, one of three U.S. pairings that remain intact from the first session, despite the Americans’ disappointing showing. The other is Webb Simpson and Patrick Reed, who are in Match 3 against Marc Leishman and Abraham Ancer.

The final match features Sungjae Im and Cameron Smith against Gary Woodland and Rickie Fowler.

Haotong Li is the only player on either team to be omitted from the first two sessions, but Els said he’ll be ready to go when called upon.

“This is the plan, and they are on board, and I think we’ve gained a lot of confidence out of what we’ve done so far,” Els said. “They’re playing at a high level.

Woods wasn’t about to panic despite the biggest first-day deficit the U.S. has ever faced.

“We’re excited about getting out there tomorrow and winning some matches, and turning this thing around. We’ve got an amazing lineup going out there tomorrow, and the guys are all fired up and ready to go.”

Friday Foursomes
Match 6: Louis Oosthuizen/Adam Scott (INT) vs. Dustin Johnson/Matt Kuchar (USA), 11:02 a.m. Australia/7:02 p.m. ET Thursday
Match 7: Adam Hadwin/Joaquin Niemann (INT) vs. Xander Schauffele/Patrick Cantlay (USA), 11:15 a.m. Australia/7:15 p.m. ET Thursday
Match 8: Marc Leishman/Abraham Ancer (INT) vs. Webb Simpson/Patrick Reed (USA), 11:28 a.m. Australia/7:28 p.m. ET Thursday
Match 9: Byeong Hun An/Hideki Matsuyama (INT) vs. Justin Thomas/Tiger Woods (USA), 11:41 a.m. Australia/7:41 p.m. ET Thursday
Match 10: Sungjae Im/Cameron Smith (INT) vs. Gary Woodland/Rickie Fowler (USA), 11:54 a.m. Australia/7:54 p.m. ET Thursday

The post Els, Woods each take counterintuitive approaches to Day 2 pairings appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Shane Ryan
MELBOURNE — Thursday morning. Gray skies, a mist so light it barely deserved the name, and stadium seating populated by Australian actors pretending to be American golf fans. Enter Patrick Reed.

After a vigorous chest-pounding courtesy of Rickie Fowler, Reed emerged from the crowd and strode onto the first tee, where a group of alleged Americans began to sing loudly and immediately. A paranoid mind might conclude that their frantic melodies were meant to keep the lonely voices around them from shouting something undignified about the incident in the Bahamas and thus slandering their … countryman?

Reed smiled and tipped his cap to them, and it’s unclear whether he knew that this group of rabid “Americans” were mostly Australian. (This should have been obvious by the fact that they were singing at all—real American fans are properly repressed, and can’t muster anything better than “U-S-A.”) Along with the punny odes to each player (“You are Hadwin beneath my wings” and “I want it Cantlay”), their mandate for the fourth match in Thursday’s four-ball session that kicked off the 13th Presidents Cup seemed to be running interference for Reed. The minute the “Americans” stopped singing, the Internationals picked up the slack, with a version of “Macho Man” paying homage to C.T. Pan

But they couldn’t sing forever. When the music died, the individual voices of the real fans rang out. They’d been sitting on their best lines, patience wearing thin as the Divided Choir droned on, and the time had come to unleash hell on the American.

“Are you going to make your caddie carry 14 clubs and a shovel?” shouted one.

“Improve your lie off the tee!” screamed another.

The insults got less clever from there, with a few cries of “sand wedge!” and “tell me where the bunkers are!” and the extremely blunt, unfriendly, “cheater!”

Reed, impassive in the face of the barrage, stepped up to hit his first drive, and because life has a sense of humor, it rolled inexorably toward the greenside bunker. When it disappeared over the ledge on the big screen, the crowd roared its appreciation, and one of the Aussies sent him off with a warning: “Patrick, there’s cameras out there too!”

So it began. He marched along in this hostile land, hole by hole, his figure framed by the scraggly low tea trees and the jagged cypresses and flowering gums, green Bermuda fairways giving way to fescue fringe giving way to the incredibly firm bentgrass greens, with the native sword sedge and kangaroo grass and stipa spreading in the heath near the bunkers that wouldn’t leave him alone. He found the sand on each of the first three holes, giving the fans very easy material—”he’s a devil with a sand wedge!” and “watch that backswing, Reedy!”—but he couldn’t escape the catcalls even in the best of times. In one memorable sequence, after hitting a solid approach on the par-4 fourth, a fan yelled out to ask if he had read the rules, drawing big laughs. When he marked his ball, another fan warned him to put it back in the right spot, and after he missed his birdie putt, he got a free piece of advice from another: “Write down 3!”

And what about the golf? Call it lackluster. After some early drama, when Pan and Hideki Matsuyama of the Internationals refused to concede a pair of one-foot par putts on the first hole, amusing Reed and four-ball partner Webb Simpson, and incensing Simpson’s caddie, Paul Tesori (“you guys had two one-footers up the hill and they didn’t give it,” he fumed), things settled down and became almost dull. An illustrative moment came on the eighth hole, when a children’s playground beyond the hedges made more noise than the crowd.

One of the mysteries of the opening pairing selection on Wednesday was trying to discern what Ernie Els was thinking when he put Matsuyama and Pan opposite Reed, but as the action slogged on through the front nine, a conspiracy theory came to me. I imagined an exchange like this in the International team room:

Els: I’m thinking of putting Cam Smith opposite Reed if the opportunity comes. If not him, maybe Scotty, to get the home crowd lined up and ready to kill.

Geoff Ogilvy, smoking a pipe and looking thoughtful: You could do that. Or you could learn from history. Consider Reed at Hazeltine, against Rory. Consider how he rose to the moment, embraced the energy, and took down the best golfer of his generation. Consider Gleneagles. Consider the boos when he shushed the crowd, and consider how he floated on air that week, buoyed by the hatred. Consider how he loves the energy, the confrontation. Consider how he rises to the contentious battle, how he almost needs it. But consider this, too: Can a man like that thrive without conflict?

Els: What are you suggesting?

Ogilvy: Put him against guys who won’t give him an ounce of juice to match, who will barely pump a fist if they make a 40-foot eagle putt. Suck the adrenaline from the course, and let him languish in the boredom.

Els, nodding sagely: I know just the fellas.

And so it played, even if that vignette is pure fantasy. Matsuyama and Pan were solid, but they weren’t spectacular. It’s just that Reed and Simpson couldn’t get anything going, couldn’t hit the big putt, couldn’t give themselves consistent birdie chances. The crowds thinned out after the first few holes, and even the heckling died off until they made the turn. In that languorous stretch, Pan and Matsuyama took a 2-up lead and held it stubbornly in those rare moments when the Americans showed signs of life. Reed’s play wasn’t the disaster it had been in Paris, but it was flat, uninspired, mediocre, until the 16th hole, where he showed a flash of the vintage form with a phenomenal approach followed by a 15-foot birdie to square the match. On the next hole, though, it was Matsuyama who looked like the old Reed, knocking in a clutch birdie putt and unleashing the best fist pump of the day.

Meanwhile, in the first match, Justin Thomas notched another win to push his cumulative team match-play record to 8-2-1 while Reed fell to 11-7-4. It raises a question: Who’s the real Captain America? And another question, too: If Reed can’t deliver wins this week, and if his legacy from Melbourne and Paris is making news off the course—and not the good kind—will he be worth a captain’s pick in the future?

And as for the match—Reed and Simpson could have staved off disaster with even a half point in the last match to finish. Instead, they lost, 1 up, and it gave the Internationals a 4-1 lead—not just the first lead that team has had after the first session since 2005, but the best lead they’ve ever had at this point. The prevailing wisdom before Thursday’s match was that Reed would respond to adversity with his trademark vigor, but when Team USA needed someone to stop the bleeding, Captain America couldn’t muster the magic.

He had one last shot on 18 to square the match—the last shot of the day—and after the long putt ran by, and after he shook hands, and after the International fans found their throats and showered praise on their team, he cut a lonely figure retrieving his ball. Simpson said on Golf Channel that the abuse he took from the crowd was “undeserved,” but who will care? This is the same show Reed can look forward to all week, and if day one is a harbinger, it doesn’t look like a show with a happy ending.

The post Patrick Reed gets the Day 1 reception you’d anticipate as the Most Wanted American appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Huggan
MELBOURNE — Many times during any year pitting Dustin Johnson and Gary Woodland against Louis Oosthuizen and Abraham Ancer would be a match with only one result. In a card game, a pair of U.S. Open champions invariably trumps an Open champion and an Australian Open champion.

Not right now, though. Not at this Presidents Cup. Not at Royal Melbourne, as the International pair of Oosthuizen/Ancer showed with a convincing 4-and-3 victory over their American opponents.

So a shock scoreline, right?

Wrong.

Think about it. On one side we had a man, Johnson, who had not played competitive golf since August. And on the other stood a world-class player—Oosthuizen has been runner-up in all four major championships, as well as lifting the claret jug in 2010 at St. Andrews—who only last week made an eagle on the 72nd hole en route to finishing second in the Australian Open.

This was no surprise. Not to International assistant captain Geoff Ogilvy, anyway.

RELATED: International team stuns the U.S. in the opening session, leads, 4-1

“Louis is a master at this format,” said the 2006 U.S. Open champion, a native Melburnian. “He loves it. He’s the clown on the bus. Everybody loves him; he fires everybody up. And Ancer is our little secret weapon this week. He’s fired up and ready to go. He’s cocky and confident, and he wants to take them all on. So it was great for all the other guys to know that ‘up the back’ they had a pair they could rely on.”

Stan Badz
Ahead of their Thursday’s Day 1 tee time, Ancer and Oosthuizen were ready for their match against Gary Woodland and Dustin Johnson.

That much was obvious early on. After an opening par, three birdies and a par on Nos. 2-5 by Oosthuizen, ostensibly the senior member of the International partnership, won all four holes and went a long way toward determining the final outcome. Never less than 3 up thereafter, the game was all but over by the turn and over for sure by the 15th green.

Those bald statistics don’t tell the whole story, though. America calls it “ham and egging,” the art of having at least one player involved in every hole. In Australia, “pie and chipping” might be more appropriate. Whatever, Ancer did most of the heavy lifting after his partner’s blistering start. From the sixth hole onward, eight times his score was the one counting for his side.

“We have a great bunch of rookies on the team,” Oosthuizen said. “I’ve said this a few times: They are in great form. Watching them in practice rounds, we ‘senior’ boys were just trying to feed off their energy. It was the same today. I was just a passenger in a car watching Abe playing unbelievable golf. It was fun to see him, how motivated and focused he was on the course.”

Still, Oosthuizen’s contribution did not die on the sixth tee. Ancer was quick to acknowledge the continuing benefit he felt from his partner’s encouragement and experience.

“It was truly a pleasure playing with Louis,” said Mexico’s first Presidents Cup player. “We do feel like a team out here, which is key. I was nervous, but he made it feel easy out there, which is not easy. This is a very tough golf course. But we had a plan, and we kept to that really well. I felt good out there, which gave me confidence. And I made some putts.”

That last bit is the most important of course. Holing out well has always been the key to winning matches, or at least making things difficult for opponents. All of which sounds a lot like what the Internationals—epitomized by Oosthuizen and Ancer—achieved on Day 1 of the 13th Presidents Cup.

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