Presidents Cup: Internationals fight back but still trail United States after

“It’s not the committee’s fault, they made a mistake”.

Finchem said in a statement that the Presidents Cup had broken new ground this year by coming to Asia for the first time and that the response, not to mention the support from Korean President Park Geun-hye, had been “fantastic”.

The Internatonals won three of five matches and halved another to trim the United States lead to 51/2 to 41/2.

“We definitely had our opportunities”, Holmes said. “Just try to get the mood up, and we’ve been playing nicely and hopefully we can have a good one this afternoon”.

The penalty for this breach is a one-hole adjustment in the match.

Mickelson used a different type of golf ball on the seventh hole of his fourballs match with Zach Johnson. “At this point, the adjustment penalty of one hole is applied, resulting in the worldwide side being two up through seven holes”.

Shot of the day: In his Four-ball match on Friday, Phil Mickelson holes out of the fairway bunker from 137 yards for eagle on the par-4 12th hole.

That’s a misnomer. What happened was that the penalty for violating the one-ball rule in match play is an adjustment to the state of the match by one hole.

He took the blame, even though it was shared with the rules staff, saying that he never should have put the staff in that position if he had known the rule. “You know it’s there”, Spieth said of the last putt. It was the only match of the morning in which the Americans never led at any point.

It came down to No. 18, though, and Day and Johnson both made clutch birdie putts there for the half point. That was in 2005 when the worldwide team led by one after two sessions. They played the par 5s a combined 8 under which is pretty much exactly what you would expect J.B. Holmes and Bubba Watson to do. “Had he been able to play out and make a 4 and tie the hole, then it would only have been 1 down instead of 2 down”.

The Americans, up 4-1 after the opening session, had their lead cut to 5½-4½.

Worldwide captain Nick Price does have Sang-Moon Bae on the bench, and if Charl Schwartzel can kick the bug he’s fighting we may see a slight shift along the way, but right now it looks as though Jay Haas and the Americans have found a winning formula. “Today was a big turnaround”. They took down Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson with three straight birdies around the turn, starting with a 70-foot putt by Oosthuizen.

At The Presidents Cup in Songdo IBD, Incheon City, Korea – the first ever played in Asia – PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem was joined by the Honorable John Eren, Victoria Minister for Tourism and Major Events, to announce an agreement between the two organizations that names the State of Victoria as the host for the World Cup of Golf in 2016 and The Presidents Cup in 2019. “So it was Merry Christmas to the other guys”, said Spieth.

It sure felt like it to Bae, who made his debut in the Presidents Cup one to remember. Bae and Lee missed chances on the par-5 15th.

He couldn’t resist one final jab, however, at the end of the press conference.

With a large gallery watching their every move, Bae delivered with the putt of his life on the 18th and heard the loudest cheer of the day.

Price said he spoke to his team Thursday night about trying to relax, and he saw enough of that to give him hope going into the weekend.