Luke Buttigieg
at Royal Melbourne
Local Aaron Baddeley will go head-to-head with former world No.1 Tiger Woods in the match that highlights Sunday's Presidents Cup singles clashes at Royal Melbourne, with the Internationals needing to dominate the final day if they are to overhaul the Americans.
The visiting team heads into the final 12 matches of the competition holding a commanding 13-9 lead, needing only to win five of the singles encounters to retain the trophy.
Baddeley and Woods, who first played together in the opening two rounds of the 2000 US Masters when Baddeley was still an amateur fresh from his famous Australian Open win, were most recently paired at last week's Australian Open at The Lakes.
United States captain Fred Couples resisted the temptation to hold Woods back for the final match against South Korean YE Yang, who he beat at the Presidents Cup two years ago, preferring to send him out against International captain Greg Norman's pick Baddeley.
"Well we sat there and that's what we looked at and he played with Aaron Baddeley last week I believe in Sydney (at the Australian Open) and they had a great time and we wanted Tiger to play with Badds," Couples said.
South Korean young gun KT Kim, who showed what he is capable of on Saturday by combining with Yang to down Woods and Dustin Johnson 1-up, will lead off for the Internationals against Webb Simpson from 10:30am AEDT.
Twelve minutes later and South African Charl Schwartzel will do battle with Johnson, followed by the clash between rising Japanese star Ryo Ishikawa and Bubba Watson, as well as Victorian Geoff Ogilvy and Bill Haas.
At 11:18am Queenslander Jason Day starts his clash with Hunter Mahan, followed by South Korean KJ Choi against Nick Watney, another Queenslander in Adam Scott against Phil Mickelson, and South African Retief Goosen against Matt Kuchar.
Goosen's countryman Ernie Els takes on fellow veteran Jim Furyk, the only player with four wins this week, from 12:06pm in Match 31, followed by Victorian Robert Allenby against David Toms, Baddeley and Woods and then Yang and Steve Stricker.
Asked about starting with their more inexperienced players, Couples said there was a simple reason after what was a trying Saturday that featured morning and afternoon sessions played in miserable weather, and International captain Greg Norman echoed his thoughts.
"We put in the young guys up front and we put in some of the older guys at the back ... but it wasn't really a well-thought out plan, we just tried to match up guys when they wanted to play and get some rest," Couples said.
"I think just like Greg's team we're all cold and tired and we put some of our older guys a little later so that they could sleep until 8 or 9 o'clock, that's basically about it."
"That's basically our philosophy (too)," Norman added.
"You've got to look after the older guys who've been out there playing a lot of golf in very trying conditions over the last 24-48 hours."
"You get them rested up and that's basically what we did out of respect for the players."
"They're all good enough to play each other or they wouldn't be in the field so we're looking after the guys, health-wise, so they're ready and capable of playing to their best ability."