Three duos lead early in World Cup

MELBOURNE, Australia — World Cup or Ryder Cup: Put Ian Poulter into a team event and he never seems to disappoint.

Poulter’s approach to less than a foot from the hole helped set up one of England’s six birdies on the back nine Thursday to give him and Tyrrell Hatton a share of the lead with South Korea and Australia after the first round of fourballs at the World Cup of Golf.

Cameron Smith made a 10-foot birdie putt on the 18th to ensure he and Australia teammate Marc Leishman were in a tie atop the leaderboard with South Korea’s Byeong Hun An and Si Woo Kim, all with 10-under 62s at Metropolitan.

Today the format switched to foursomes, or alternate shot, and it will again for the final round.

“This tournament’s won and lost on Friday and Sunday,” Poulter said. “Foursomes is the day when you can take yourself out of the tournament pretty quickly. In fourballs you’re always going to make birdies, and hopefully you don’t make any mistakes.”

Three teams were tied for fourth, one stroke behind: Belgium (Thomas Pieters and Thomas Detry), Malaysia (Gavin Green and Ben Leong) and Soren Kjeldsen and Thorbjorn Olesen, who won the title for Denmark by four strokes two years ago at nearby Kingston Heath.

India (Anirban Lahiri and Gaganjeet Bhullar) and Ireland (Shane Lowry and Paul Dunne) were tied for seventh after 64s. The U.S. team of Kyle Stanley and Matt Kuchar was in a large group tied for 13th among 28 teams after a 66.

Poulter has picked up 15 career points in Ryder Cup events for Europe over the United States.