Golf: Perfect storm sinks International team at Presidents Cup
JERSEY CITY, New Jersey - (Reuters) - The International team have been so outplayed at the Presidents Cup that it perhaps would have been appropriate had the United States delivered the knockout punch on Saturday.
Instead, the coup de grace will be delivered at Liberty National on Sunday, probably sooner rather than later, leaving the visitors to conduct a probably uncomplicated post-mortem.
Sometimes one team is simply better than the other and the International team's record over the first three days makes ugly reading.
Only two matches won out of 18, one of them a generous four-foot concession by American Kevin Chappell on the final hole on Saturday that allowed a relieved Indian Anirban Lahiri to avoid having to make the knee-knocker in a howling wind.
The U.S. have won 101 holes to 61, while the bellicose crowd have upset some of the International team players.
"We're fighting not only these guys who are the best players in the world but we're fighting the crowds," said Day. "It's tough."
Former world number one Day played the 2015 event exhausted after winning his first major at the PGA Championship a couple of months previously. He went 0-4-2 and this time has gone 0-3-1.
Another former world number one, Adam Scott, is 0-3-0 this week, while Hideki Matsuyama, the top-ranked player on the International team, has earned just half a point.
"That one full point has been quite elusive this week," said Lahiri. "We feel terrible about this being Nick's last captaincy, and we've not played well and the Americans have played great. So this is not the way we'd like him to leave.
"We can compete. We haven't this week."
Assistant captain Ernie Els said it had been a perfect storm.
"Just based on pure form running into this week, the timing of their form has been exceptional," he said of the Americans.
"And then you look at their talent on the team, it's pretty exceptional, too. They had a lot going for them this week."
(Reporting by Andrew Both)
