Luke Buttigieg
at Royal Melbourne
The Americans have retained the Presidents Cup with a 19-15 victory over the Internationals at Royal Melbourne, halving the singles on the final day as they continued their dominance of a competition they have now won seven times from nine attempts.
Greg Norman's Internationals started the week favourites to pick up just their second win in an event that started in 1994, having thrashed the Americans 20 ½-11 ½ at the same venue back in 1998 while the 2003 tournament was shared in South Africa.
But Fred Couples' team grabbed the lead on the opening day and after going further ahead on a marathon Saturday in miserable conditions, slammed the door shut on Sunday with Tiger Woods' 4 and 3 win over Victorian Aaron Baddeley sealing the triumph.
By winning the first four matches on Sunday thanks to Ryo Ishikawa, Charl Schwartzel, KT Kim and Geoff Ogilvy, the Internationals gave themselves some hope of fighting back from their 13-9 overnight deficit.
But having claimed the first of five points they needed on the final day through Hunter Mahan, who completed a horror week for wayward Queenslander Jason Day with a 5 and 3 win, subsequent victories from David Toms, Nick Watney, Jim Furyk and Woods proved decisive.
"It's a team of bombers and good putters," Couples said after the win, having labelled Watney's win as the most crucial as the Internationals made their early charge on the final day.
"If you ask anyone what you would like at Royal Melbourne, you would say someone who hits it long and someone who can putt."
"We made a lot of putts and so did hey but we just made more of them and we had guys that could really hit the ball."
"I was never concerned with all of this I heard about that we'll never get used to Royal Melbourne in a couple of practice rounds."
"They played well, we had some phenomenal scoring in what I think is very tough conditions but the guys we are all different and they teamed up extremely well."
Queenslander Adam Scott and South African Retief Goosen were the other International winners on Sunday, Scott downing Phil Mickelson 2 and 1 and Goosen a 1-up winner over Matt Kuchar, before Steve Stricker wrapped up the final match against South Korean YE Yang 2 and 1.
"Obviously I feel for the guys, they came in here full of enthusiasm and they felt really good last night and this morning coming out on the bus," Norman said.
"You feel for them, we did the right thing the way we loaded up the start of the play and the guys stepped up to the plate (so) I'm very, very proud of them for doing that."
"They put a little bit of fear into the Americans but they had too much horsepower (and) the Americans putted extremely well today."
After a disappointing week playing with Baddeley, having struggled to come to terms with the famed sandbelt course, Day shot a nine-over 44 to the turn to be down by five and never got closer than three as Mahan took the first point of the day.
But after impressing as he and compatriot Yang beat Woods and Dustin Johnson on Saturday, Kim repeated the dose when he bolted to a 3-up lead after seven holes and then survived a fightback from Webb Simpson by winning