U.S. in unfamiliar territory
Royal Melbourne eating up inexperienced Americans
Posted: Tuesday December 29, 1998 09:10 PM
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Flipping out: Woods won only one of his first four matches Jack Atley/Allsport |
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Jack Nicklaus crouched behind Fred Couples and squinted his eyes on the 14th hole, reading the line on the 25-foot birdie putt but looking more like he wanted to take it himself.
The way things are going for his U.S. team in the Presidents Cup, it wouldn't have made much of a difference.
No matter where Nicklaus was or whom he was watching Saturday in the second day of matches, the result was the same -- an International player dropping a crucial putt, the Americans falling hopelessly behind.
At the end of the day, the International team had a 14 1/2-5 1/2 lead and needed only two victories out of the 12 singles matches on Sunday.
"This International team, they came ready to play," captain Peter Thomson said. "There's no doubt about it, they've taken these matches very seriously and I think that has led to their performance. I don't see any other secret involved in it."
But Nicklaus does.
No American knows Royal Melbourne Golf Club as well as Nicklaus, who has played there dozens of times. More importantly to these matches, no American knows Royal Melbourne as well as Greg Norman, Steve Elkington, or the four other International players from Australia or New Zealand.
Norman and Elkington are 3-0-1 in their four matches. Stuart Appleby is 2-0-1 and Craig Parry is 2-1 -- both are from Australia -- while Greg Turner and Frank Nobilo, the Kiwis, have a 2-1 record in these matches.
Shigeki Maruyama has won two of his four matches paired with Parry.
"I hit where Mr. Parry told me to hit," Maruyama said.
Nicklaus downplayed a home course advantage in the days leading up to the Presidents Cup, but was singing a new song after the International team built a lead that will be virtually impossible to overcome.
"I don't think our guys have played poorly," Nicklaus said. "I think really what has happened is that Royal Melbourne has shown herself and absolutely made it difficult for us to really understand the little nuances. I think local knowledge has played a bit part."
Nicklaus did what he could.
When the morning alternate-shot matches were over, a look at the scoreboard made the Americans feel numb. The International won four of the five matches and split the other, with a balking putter behind just about every U.S. loss.
That's when Nicklaus got out of his cart and went onto the greens.
"Our guys have not been able to get anything in the hole, so I went out and watched ... so I could help the guys with the greens a little bit," he said. "However, every green I go on, I seem to see 20-footers going in for the International side. They were absolutely brilliant."
The Americans were anything but.
After Nicklaus helped Couples with his line on the 14th, the pivotal hole in a pivotal best-ball match, the birdie putt came up a few inches short. Norman proceeded to drop his 15-footer into the throat for a 1-up lead that he and Steve Elkington never gave back.
The International team is thriving on the kind of theatrics that belonged to Couples in the first two Presidents Cup matches, both won by the United States, both on the familiar turf of the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Virginia.
A day after Frank Nobilo holed a 40-foot birdie putt on the 18th for a 1-up victory, Craig Parry chipped in from 50 feet away on the same green to turn a possible loss into a 1-up win over Couples and Tiger Woods.
As Nicklaus drove around Melbourne in his cart, this is what he saw:
Norman chipping in from 75 feet in a best-ball match with Elkington after Couples hit it stiff for a shoo-in birdie.
Ernie Els making three putts over 20 feet in his best-ball match with Singh, a 1-up victory over Woods and John Huston.
"They're playing great golf -- holing all their shots, up-and-downs everywhere, and making so many birdie runs that it's hard to stop them," Woods said.
At the end of two days, Nicklaus was confronted with this surprising statistic: David Duval, the leading money-winner on the PGA Tour and perhaps the most dominant player this year, has yet to win a match, while Maruyama of Japan is now 4-0.
"It's the first time he's been down here," Nicklaus said of Duval. "I remember the first time I came down, I struggled like the devil. Sometimes it takes a little learning."
The International team is long on experience.
In each of the first two days of alternate-shot matches, the International team has had at least one player in all five matches who had played Royal Melbourne in tournament conditions.
And conditions this week have been as tricky as every. A northerly blast of hot air gave puts Melbourne in its nastiest state, the nastiest Thomson has ever seen it.
Thomson, a five-time British Open champion who grew up in Melbourne, won what is now the World Cup of Golf with Ken Nagle when it was played at Melbourne in 1959.
"We had two north-wind days when it was like this -- hard, dry and glassy greens," Thomson said. "That was 40 years ago, and not between then and now have I seen Royal Melbourne in this mood. It has never been this tough."
The Americans can certainly attest to that.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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