Couples open to criticism, keeping 0-2 Woods in lineup
Tiger Woods is the only American with an 0-2 record in the Presidents Cup. But he will be in the lineup when the third round opens on Saturday morning (3 p.m. Friday EST). He will play with Dustin Johnson in foursomes (alternate shot).
As long as U.S. holds its 7-5 lead, few will criticize Fred Couples for not benching the least productive member of his team. But what if the U.S. blows its lead and Woods remains winless?
In seven Presidents Cup competitions and six Ryder Cups, Woods has never sat out a round. He hasn’t been terrible. He made two birdies in the four-ball second round, when windy conditions put the teeth in hard, fast Royal Melbourne. Rusty Steve Stricker made one birdie in round two and Nick Watney made none. They are the players on the bench as the third round opens.
“Not many times when he doesn’t win a point through a couple of rounds,” Couples said of Woods. “But you know what, we are up by two points and that is all I care about at the moment. And I would say Tiger does the same. He played very well today. Jason Day and Aaron Baddeley threw it all at them today and they won 1 up. I think Steve Stricker can’t go five rounds. I wouldn’t do that to him. So I went back to Tiger and Dustin.”
Couples is doing the right thing keeping the following teams intact – Phil Mickelson/Jim Furyk, David Toms/Hunter Mahan, and Webb Simpson/Bubba Watson. It will be interesting to see if Woods/Johnson does today, same for the new team of Bill Hass/Matt Kuchar. This is the third different partner for Kuchar. He was brilliant in the second round, carrying Stricker in a 4 and 3 victory over Y.E. Yang and Robert Allenby. All five of the holes won by the U.S. were captured by Kuchar who made five birdies, the most of any player in the brutal second round conditions.
International captain Greg Norman has benched the correct duo – Koreans K.T. Kim and Y.E. Yang. Both are 0-2. Kim joined Adam Scott and made just one birdie in a 2 and 1 loss to Mickelson-Furyk. Yang didn’t make a birdie or win a hole in his better-ball pairing with Allenby.
For the third round, Norman has paired up his teams with nationality in mind. There are two Australian teams and one all-South Africa twosome.
Norman might have mixed up Ernie Els and Ryo Ishikawa. Both are 0-2 playing together, but will remain paired up in the third round.
Here are the matchups for the alternate-shot third round:
Watson/Simpson (U.S.) vs. Allenby/Geoff Ogilvy
Hass/Kuchar (U.S.) vs. Els/Ishikawa
Mahan/Toms (U.S.) vs. Retief Goosen/Charl Schwartzel
Woods/Johnson (U.S.) vs. Adam Scott/K.J. Choi
Mickelson/Furyk (U.S.) vs. Baddeley/Day
