Americans steamroll International Team at Presidents Cup

The final day of the 12th Presidents Cup will either feature an expected, and almost guaranteed, victory by the rampaging United States Team or one of the greatest comebacks in the history of sports.

The latter can only occur if the International Team, which has been outplayed, out-thought, out-coached and out-everything-elsed for the first three days by Team USA, wins every one of the 12 singles matches on Sunday.

That all-or-nothing scenario was created when the Americans continued to plow forward to victory with all the subtlety of a freight train, winning 6 1/2 of the possible eight points over the International Team on Saturday to build a nearly insurmountable advantage after Day 3 of this biennial event, being contested at Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, N.J.

That gave the Americans a commanding lead of 14 1/2 to 3 1/2 entering singles play on Sunday.

With a total of 15 1/2 points needed to win the Presidents Cup, coach Steve Stricker’s team might already have the bubbly on ice, but there’s still a little work to be done.

The American team captured three of the four points in the four afternoon four-ball (best-ball) matches Saturday after winning three and halving a fourth in the foursome (alternate shot) competitions earlier in the day.

“Another great day — again these guys have played unbelievable golf,” Stricker said about his team. “It wasn’t a good start for us this afternoon, either, and these guys just, you know, they get in that position where they are down and they keep fighting and scratching. They hit some great shots coming down the end. They made some clutch putts.”

Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed continued their match-play dominance with 2-and-1 win over Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa and Jason Day of Australia in the afternoon session, recording birdies on Nos. 15, 16 and 17 to erase a 1-down deficit and break the spirit of the two veteran major championship winners.

“You know, we’re all trying to go out there and play solid golf, represent ourselves, the people around us the right way,” Spieth said. “Whatever happens, happens. It’s really an outstanding tournament with 24 fantastic players and fantastic people. We’ve had a phenomenal week thus far and our team has played incredible golf.”

Later in the afternoon, Daniel Berger and Justin Thomas rallied from 3-down through the first four holes to beat the International pairing of Jhonattan Vegas of Venezuela and Hideki Matsuyama of Japan 3 and 2.

Berger, a rookie in this competition, birdied the 10th hole to pull the Americans even and added another on the 11th to propel Team USA into the lead. After Thomas sank a 42-foot downhill putt on the 14th to push their lead to 2-up, Berger finished the match with a par on the 16th.

The long-hitting American duo of Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson bettered the International pairing of Australia’s Marc Leishman and South Africa’s Branden Grace 3 and 2 to claim Team USA’s third point of the afternoon session. Koepka and Johnson, the past two U.S. Open champions, never trailed in their win, with Koepka’s birdies on the 13th and 15th holes ultimately deciding the match.

The International Team claimed its only full point of Day 3 when Anirban Lahiri of India and Si Woo Kim of South Korea beat American rookies Kevin Chappell and Charley Hoffman 1-up. The win by Lahiri and Kim, accomplished ultimately by Lahiri’s birdie on the 16th hole and a halve of the 17th, kept the International Team mathematically alive in the event.

“Both of us went out and said, ‘We are going to look away from the screens and focus on what we need to do, and keep our head down and try and play our best,'” Lahiri said. “I guess in the back of our minds, (staying alive) was there, but trust me, neither of us was thinking about it coming down the stretch.”

The Americans led 11 1/2 to 2 1/2 points heading into Saturday afternoon’s matches.

Spieth and Reed rolled past Leishman and Day 4 and 3, in the opening match of the morning session. The match was tied at the turn before Spieth and Reed birdied the 12th and 13th holes to go 2-up. A par by the Americans was good enough to win the 14th, and an eight-foot birdie putt by Reed on the 15th closed out the match.

Matt Kuchar and Johnson’s 4-and-3 win over the Canada’s Adam Hadwin and Adam Scott of Australia was produced in a slightly different manner, with the Americans never trailing and using birdies on the seventh and ninth holes to make the turn 4 up. The International team rallied with wins on the 10th and 13th, but Kuchar’s 20-foot birdie putt provided the needed margin for the 4-and-3 victory.

Kevin Kisner and Phil Mickelson needed to go a little deeper into the round to beat Emiliano Grillo of Argentina and Vegas in a back-and-forth match that the Americans won 2 and 1 by taking the 17th hole.

The International Team managed a half-point out of the four available in the morning session when the South African duo of Grace and Oosthuizen halved their match with Americans Thomas and Rickie Fowler.

NOTES: The six-point lead for the U.S. Team after Friday was the largest through two sessions by any team in the history of the Presidents Cup. …Future Venues of the Presidents Cup are Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Australia in 2019, Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C., in 2021 and TPC Harding Park Golf Club in San Francisco, Calif., in 2025. The international venue for the competition in 2023 is yet to be determined. … Liberty National is the fourth golf course in the United States to host the Presidents Cup, joining Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Prince William County, Va., (1994, 1996, 2000 and 2005), TPC Harding Park (2009) and Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio (2013). …The International Team is represented by eight countries, tying the most-ever for an International Team (2000, 2009).