Phil Mickelson, Scott Verplank and Stewart Cink won the deciding matches on Sunday to bring the US their first Presidents Cup victory over the Internationals off home soil by a score of 19.5 to 14.5.
The US team improved to 5-1-1 against their non-European rivals and sent a message that they intend to make a tougher fight at next year's Ryder Cup after losing five of the past six to the Europeans.
"We came into this week with a little score to settle in the international golf arena and I think we showed everybody that we can play again," said Cink, whose 6-and-4 victory over Australian Nick O'Hern provided the clinching point.
PHOTO: AP
Mickelson, 0-3-3 in prior Cup singles, beat Fiji's Vijay Singh 5 and 4, Verplank 4-0 and South African Rory Sabbatini 2 and 1.
"Scott Verplank was my rock," US captain Jack Nicklaus said. "Phil was great and Stewart played great. That's what we needed. We've squeezed it out."
With most of the attention focused on Canadian Mike Weir's 1-up victory over world No. 1 Tiger Woods, there was little reaction from the fans at the 14th hole when Cink closed out the US team's triumph.
"I'm happy to be the one to clinch the Cup," Cink said. "When you're by yourself it means you won your match early. You don't want to keep playing golf when you're ahead."
Once Cink pushed the US across the line at Royal Montreal Golf Club, the Internationals finished well but victories by Weir, Australian Adam Scott, Argentina's Angel Cabrera and South Korean K.J. Choi only shrank the final gap.
"It's disappointing for us, but I played better every day," Scott said. "It's just hard-fought matches. The US played great throughout the week and we left ourselves a lot to do."
Internationals players, who won in 1998 at Australia and drew in 2003 at South Africa, had never outscored US rivals in any Presidents Cup singles session until doing so 7-5 on Sunday.
"Our guys can hold their heads high," Internationals captain Gary Player said. "They won more singles matches, made a match of it."
Mickelson lost the first hole but won four of the next six and never trailed again while Cink began with five birdies to humble O'Hern, who twice has beaten Woods in match-play.
"We wanted the momentum," Mickelson said. "I was fortunate to get off to a good start and was able to close it out early."
Verplank birdied the last two holes and improved to 10-3 in the Presidents and Ryder cups to keep Sabbatini winless in team competitions.
"I just love playing team golf," Verplank said. "I have a pretty good record because I enjoy it so much. I feel like I'm a pretty good teammate and I know how to work with teammates, too."
South Africa's Ernie Els, 3-down after six holes, won four of his last six holes to beat US rookie Hunter Mahan 2-up, but that only delayed defeat.
"I was in deep trouble," Els said. "I got off to a slow start. I bettered myself and got back into the game, made some birdies on the back nine and got it done."
David Toms beat South African Trevor Immelman 2-up after the outcome was no longer in doubt to become the week's top US point producer at 4-0.
Jim Furyk dropped his first Cup singles match in five starts, falling 2 and 1 to South African Retief Goosen in the last match to finish.
Weir's emotional comeback triumph over Woods before a loud crowd was not an anti-climax for the home-nation star, who went a Cup-best 3-1-1 this week. Weir ranked beating Woods with his 2003 Masters victory as his greatest in golf.
"Winning the Masters was such a thrill. It's right there with it," Weir said. "I had to play my absolute best to beat him.
"To have this kind of support, it's overwhelming. I have a tough time putting into words what this really means to me, maybe even more special than the Masters," he said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier