Presidents Cup 2019: Team USA stays just within reach ahead of Sunday singles

The U.S. team staged just enough of a rally Saturday to give itself a chance to retain the Presidents Cup.

Through the first three rounds of the 13th playing of the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne, the least reliable element – with the possible exception of Patrick Reed – had been the form chart. The heavily favored Americans lost all of the first three sessions….and occasionally looked disinterested in doing so

But form is form for a reason, and in Saturday afternoon’s alternate shot matches the favorites finally tired of being beaten on. The results weren’t everything they might have been, but the Americans did come away with three of the four available points.

As a result, they enter Sunday’s dozen singles matches as close as they’ve been all week to the Internationals, trailing by a manageable 10-8.

The teams of Gary Woodland/Dustin Johnson and Patrick Cantlay/Xander Schauffele both survived occasionally tense finishes to post 2 & 1 victories. The afternoon’s final point came in halves; Rickie Fowler/Justin Thomas and Tony Finau/Matt Kuchar both tying their matches.

From a standpoint of drama, that result sets up about as eyeball-catching a finish as the Presidents Cup might have hoped for. The underdog Internationals lead by just enough to allow their supporters to believe they can complete the upset. The favored Americans, meanwhile, recovered just enough of their momentum to suggest their backers that their advantage in talent will inevitably win out.

For part of Saturday afternoon, the Americans appeared poised to erase the 9-5 advantage the Internationals had built over those first three sessions and arrive at the first tee Sunday dead even.

They led all four matches well into the back nine, Fowler and Thomas carrying a seemingly insurmountable five-up lead through 11 holes of their match with Mark Leishman and Abraham Ancer.

But Ancer and Leishman closed within three by the time that match got to the 16th tee. Thomas left Fowler with an awkward approach from the right-side trees, which Fowler did well to get on the green, but nearly 70 feet from the pin. They three-putted from there for a bogey.

At 17, Thomas couldn’t get his 151 yard approach from the fairway any closer than 50 feet, creating another three-putt. That reduced their lead to one. Then at 18, Thomas pulled his drive under a low tree, leaving Fowler no alternative but to pitch out. When Thomas again failed to stick an approach anywhere near the hole, Leishman’s approach to six feet effectively sealed the split that had seemed impossible just a short time earlier.

Joaquin Niemann’s approach within six feet helped finalize the deadlock in his and Byeong An’s match with Kuchar and Finau, the Americans having led by two with five holes remaining.

Those two finishes amounted to a mirror image of Friday’s conclusion, when Cantlay and Thomas both dropped putts on the final hole to rescue the Americans, who appeared destined to take a 4-1 or even a 5-0 whipping in the session. Instead they escaped with an even split of the five available points.

The Internationals won Saturday’s morning session because they got a far greater depth of performances. There was no better illustration of this than the four-ball match pitting C.T. Pan and Hideki Matsuyama against Webb Simpson and Reed.

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As they have most of the week, the Simpson-Reed team entered the match favored largely due to the eight-tenths of a stroke average advantage in Strokes Gained. But Reed and Simpson played as somnolently Saturday as they have all week, combining to manufacture just one birdie. Pan and Matsuyama, meanwhile, posted six birdies plus an eagle on the way to ending the match 5 & 3 after 15 holes.

It was the same story in the 3&2 victory of Ancer and Sungjae Im over Cantlay and Schauffele. They combined for seven birdies, three more than Schauffele and Cantlay. Ancer drilled four of those birdies, three for wins, including the three concluding holes, which turned a tight 1 up situation to that 3&2 win.

Ancer did it with his putter, which would have come as a surprise to those in charge of the form chart. He ranked 113th last season in Strokes Gained Putting with a rating that was below the Tour average. Saturday morning, however, Ancer’s four birdies came on putts totaling nearly 90 feet, including a 50-footer at the third hole.

But then, form charts haven’t meant much at Royal Melbourne all week. The Presidents Cup will come down to a dramatic finish in Sunday’s singles matches, with the heavily favored Americans looking to stave off just their second upset loss in the event’s history. The way the International side has performed, though, that won’t be an easy task.