Americans roll on, are just 1 point from Presidents Cup win
The Americans came within one match of winning the Presidents Cup. On Saturday.
Anirban Lahiri made two clutch birdies that only delayed the inevitable. This is a powerful U.S. team playing to its full potential, and the result is the biggest blowout since these matches began in 1994.
Lahiri and Si Woo Kim beat Charley Hoffman and Kevin Chappell for the only victory for the International team over two sessions.
“They got a standing ovation when they walked in our team room tonight,” International captain Nick Price said with a smile. “First time we had seen a match go our way for a long time.”
Otherwise, from the sun rising over the Manhattan skyline until the chilly twilight at Liberty National in Jersey City, N.J., the Americans poured it on. They had a 141⁄2-31⁄2 lead and need only one point Sunday to win the cup for the seventh straight time.
Phil Mickelson set a Presidents Cup record with his 25th victory, breaking the record set by Tiger Woods. Mickelson hit two wedges into birdie range in the morning foursomes session with Kevin Kisner, when the Americans won three matches and halved the other.
Jordan Spieth’s best intentions cost him a hole in a ruling rarely seen in match play, though that didn’t matter. All that did was inspire Spieth and Patrick Reed to win yet another match. They are 8-1-3 as a partnership in the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup.
Justin Thomas made another big birdie on the 14th hole and cupped his hand to his ear, covered by a beanie in the chill, to fire up a crowd that didn’t need much help.
“Our goal coming in was to try to win every session, and we’ve done that up till now,” Daniel Berger said after teaming with Thomas for his first point of the week. “Tomorrow, we’re going to go out and try to do the exact same thing.”
The 11-point margin is the largest going into the 12 singles matches, breaking the International record of nine points set in 1998 at Royal Melbourne, the only time it has ever won the Presidents Cup. The 2003 matches ended in a tie.
While the outcome was inevitable, this day still had its moment, none more peculiar than the 12th hole.
Jason Day was already down for a birdie. Spieth had 12 feet for his birdie, while Louis Oosthuizen hit his drive behind the green on the reachable par 4 and had a shot at eagle. The ball raced by the hole and was headed down the slope with water on the other side, and the partisan American crowd was urging it to keep going.
Spieth had heard enough and reached over and scooped away the moving ball with his putter. Match referee Andy McFee, a top rules chief on the European Tour, stepped in and informed Spieth that it was a violation of the first rule in golf (Rule 1-2): “A player must not take an action with the intent to influence the movement of a ball in play.”
Spieth figured the International team already had its birdie. Even so, the rule meant Spieth was disqualified from the hole, even as Oosthuizen and Day protested.
That gave Day and Oosthuizen a 1-up lead that lasted only three holes. Spieth birdied the 15th to square the match, Reed hit a tee shot into the wind and along a ridge to 5 feet for birdie on the 16th, and Spieth birdied the 17th to close them out. Web.com: Five-time PGA Tour winner Jonathan Byrd shot a 7-under-par 64 in rainy, windy conditions at Atlantic Beach, Fla., to take the third-round lead in the Web.com Tour Championship.
Needing a high finish to regain his PGA Tour card, Byrd had a 20-under 193 total at Atlantic Beach Country Club for a two-stroke lead over Sam Saunders (70) in the last of four Web.com Tour Finals events. European Tour: Rory McIlroy moved into contention at the British Masters in Newcastleupon-Tyne by shooting a 6under 64 in the third round, leaving the No. 6-ranked golfer two strokes off the lead held by Sweden’s Robert Karlsson.
Karlsson shot 67 and was one stroke clear of five players, including overnight leader Tyrrell Hatton, who bogeyed the last for a 71. LPGA Tour: Spain’s Belen Mozo will take a one-shot lead into the final round of the New Zealand Women’s Open after a 1-under 71 helped her to 15under 201 as she held off challenges from Canada’s Brooke Henderson (67) and American Brittany Lincicome (66) in Auckland.