Saturday's pairings set for Presidents Cup Day 3
INCHEON CITY, South Korea -- Now it's time for the U.S. to rally.
After winning just one match Friday in Fourballs and seeing their 4-1 lead against the Internationals after the first day cut to 5½-4½ after the second day, the Americans will try and regroup Saturday in the Presidents Cup when a session of Foursomes and Fourballs will be played at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea.
"I don't think the guys are discouraged," U.S. captain Jay Haas said about Friday's play. "There were some hard-fought matches. … The matches were right down to the wire. It's a putt here, a putt there; things could have ended differently.
"But you know, we're still a little bit ahead, and looking forward, it's obviously a very important day tomorrow. I think the guys realize that and they will come out ready to go."
The day will begin with four Foursomes matches.
In the first match, Patrick Reed will be paired with Rickie Fowler for the U.S. and will face Louis Oosthuizen and Branden Grace, who are 2-0 as a team. Match 2 has the USA's Bubba Watson and J.B. Holmes, who are 2-0, against fellow Australians Adam Scott and Marc Leishman.
In the third match, Bill Haas and Matt Kuchar will team up for the Americans against Sangmoon Bae and Hideki Matsuyama. The anchor match has Dustin Johnson and world No. 1 Jordan Spieth for the U.S. against world No. 2 Jason Day and Charl Schwartzel.
Four Fourballs matches will be played in the afternoon.
Those sitting in the morning for the U.S. are Zach Johnson, Phil Mickelson, Jimmy Walker and Chris Kirk. Sitting for the Internationals are Steven Bowditch, Thongchai Jaidee, Anirban Lahiri and Danny Lee.
The tide for the Internationals started turning Thursday night after the team fell behind 4-1. Captain Nick Price gave an inspired speech to the team that carried onto the golf course the following day.
"I didn't feel like it was any different to any of the other speeches or any of the other talks that we had, to be honest," Price said. "Watching yesterday, it was like a different team out there that I had on Tuesday. And so I tried to say to them, you know, you guys had this buzz going on Tuesday, and it wasn't there yesterday. I just tried to calm the guys' nerves.
"I don't criticize them. They just responded so well today. You know, I wish I could take more credit, but those guys went out and did it today, they really did. That's the team spirit that we have."
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