Americans triumph at Presidents Cup
The International Team gave it everything on the final day of the Presidents Cup, but the four point deficit was too much to overcome.
A majestic week for Australian golf has finished with the American’s winning the 2011 Presidents cup at Royal Melbourne. The American team showed how much better they were than the losing one that lost here in 1998, by mastering Royal Melbourne in only a few practise rounds.
The final score was 19 – 15 in favour of the Americans after both teams split the singles match winning six games each.
The Americans were better than the International Team in every weather condition Royal Melbourne could throw at them and made a mockery of pre-tournament predictions that they would struggle on the famed sandbelt layout.
Much will be made of Robert Allenby’s horror week and Jason Day’s poor final day, but let’s concentrate on the good stories for the week.
The emergence of KT Kim
Prior to the Presidents Cup, few people knew who KT Kim was but a magical weekend from the young Korean. His wins on Saturday and Sunday kept the Intentional Team’s hope alive and showed poise beyond his age.
Tiger comes good on a Sunday
It has been a long while since Tiger Woods has been that dominant on a Sunday. Woods never gave Aaron Baddeley a chance and it was his winning point that secured the Presidents Cup trophy for the USA. While he may not have garnered as many hugs by the WAGs as other players, he was the best captain’s pick this weekend across both teams.
Fighting Furyk
Jim Furyk almost didn’t make the US Presidents Cup team, only squeezing into the ten automatic qualifiers in the final few weeks. He finished with five wins from five matches and was the stand out golfer at Royal Melbourne. After a relatively poor year on the US PGA Tour from Furyk, perhaps he’s not too old to win another major championship.
Royal Melbourne
The grand old lady of Australian golf courses was on the International stage this week and she has earned everyone’s respect. At one stage it appeared the greens would get too quick on a blustery hot Friday but the course and greens held firm.
Every golfer and spectator loved the golf course that features something not seen on the PGA Tour very often; tight, short par-4’s that as Phil Mickelson said were “reachable, but not drivable”.
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The event was fantastic. I must admit I was surprised at the lack of deapth of the international side. A few things I heard reported make sense to me.
1, The wave of asian golfers on the way (Chinese and Koreans in particular) will make a radical impact to deapth of the International Team but could take 10-15 years.
2, Internationals need to find a bi- annual event where they can play the same format (improve the foursomes skills). Maybe Northern vs Southern countries. This would improve the teams spirit(they may know each others names).
3. The Europeans used to lose to the US all the time. Now the americans are rank outsiders to beat the Europeans..
But Greg Norman was by far the best and fairest with the cliches for the week. He is indeed the elder statesman, not only of Australian golfing cliches, but the world! I winced every time he was interviewed, waiting to see if he could out-cliche Jack Newton and others, and he did, winning 10 and 8. At least he didn’t say, “We are just taking it one President’s Cup at a time”!
10 and 8! Hilarious.
Love the thoughts Herb. Totally agree with points 1 and 2.
Also, most of the criticism of the event seems to originate in Europe/UK.