MEDINAH, Ill. (AP) — The Americans filled the leaderboard with their red numbers Saturday morning, and then had to rely on Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns rallying late in their fourballs match to at least make a dent in the International lead at the Presidents Cup.
The Americans narrowly won the session, trimming the International lead to 8 1/2-5 1/2 heading into the afternoon foursomes matches.
The Internationals started the pivotal double session with their largest lead (7-3) since 1998, the only time they have won since the Presidents Cup began in 1994.
The morning could have gone better for the Americans. They had leads in all four matches, only to see them switch around as the Internationals led in two and were tied in another.
Tom Kim and Si Woo Kim went to 3-0 for the week with a crowd-shushing rally from 2 down to a 2-and-1 victory over Collin Morikawa and Wyndham Clark. Min Woo Lee and Sungjae Im won consecutive holes late to scratch out a halve against Justin Thomas and Jackson Koivun.
In the anchor match, the Internationals took a 1-up lead over Scheffler and Burns with four to play. They were looking to split the session, perhaps even win it.
But then Scheffler holed a 20-foot birdie putt on the 15th hole to square the match. Burns followed with a 7-iron over the water to a front pin that rolled out 4 feet away for birdie to take the lead. Burns closed out the match with an approach to 4 feet on the 17th for birdie.
“Just waiting for a putt to go in ... and it was an important one there because Ryo was on basically the same line as me,” Scheffler said. “So it was nice to hole that one and put some pressure on them. And then Sam ... pretty good irons shots there on the last couple of holes.”
That gave the Americans two wins and a halve in the four matches.
Even the one match the Americans dominated — Chris Gotterup and Cameron Young were 4-up through four holes when Young drove the par-4 fourth green and made a 30-foot eagle — got tight on the back nine when the Canadian duo of Nick Taylor and Corey Conners were 2 down.
Gotterup took over from there. He made a 50-footer on the 14th, only for Taylor to match him from 50 feet. Gotterup won the 15th with a 35-foot birdie putt, and he closed out the match on the 17th with a 35-foot birdie putt from just off the green.
“Still holding my putter, which is pretty much what I did on the back nine watching my partner hole everything,” Young said in his television interview after the match.
For the afternoon foursomes, U.S. captain Brandt Snedeker decided to sit out Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world. International captain Geoff Ogilvy kept out Nico Echavarria and Christiaan Bezuidenhout from both sessions on Saturday.
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