MEDINAH \u2013 The Internationals completed a sensational foursomes clean sweep on Sept 25 to surge into a commanding 7-3 lead over the United States at the Presidents Cup.<\/p>\n
Trailing 3-2 after the Sept 24 opening four-ball matches, the Internationals won all five of day two\u2019s foursomes to open up a four-point cushion heading into the weekend at Medinah Country Club.<\/p>\n
Canadian duo Corey Conners and Nick Taylor produced one of the most notable victories, taking down world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns 1-up in a tense battle.<\/p>\n
The Canadians edged into the lead on the 12th hole when Conners drilled his second shot to six feet for Taylor to tap in a birdie.<\/p>\n
Taylor then made sure of victory on the 18th with an extraordinary approach shot from the fairway that finished just two feet from the hole for an easy par.<\/p>\n
Burns had a chance to square the match, but his 17-foot birdie putt curled agonisingly around the cup as the Internationals claimed the win.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Japan\u2019s Hideki Matsuyama and South Korea\u2019s Im Sung-jae partnered to get the first point of the day with a 3&2 win over Russell Henley and Jacob Bridgeman.<\/p>\n
Former Masters champion Matsuyama rolled in a 19-foot par putt to clinch victory on the 16th.<\/p>\n
New Zealand\u2019s Ryan Fox and Australia\u2019s Min Woo Lee dug deep to win a nervy duel with Collin Morikawa and Wyndham Clark 1-up to add another Internationals point.<\/p>\n
The sweep was completed with Adam Scott and Christiaan Bezuidenhout scoring a 3&2 win over Justin Thomas and Cameron Young before Tom Kim and Kim Si-woo downed Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele 4&3.<\/p>\n
The win was only the third time the Internationals have swept a session since the Presidents Cup was first held in 1994.<\/p>\n
They are attempting to win the biennial team golf tournament for the first time since 1998, while the US are chasing an 11th-straight victory in the Ryder Cup-style event.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just wanted to come out and win the session,\u201d International captain Geoff Ogilvy said afterwards.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe guys were all in a great frame of mind, but you never imagine going five zip… but we\u2019ve seen it in these events when you get some momentum, it inspires all the groups,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was an incredible day for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
US captain Brandt Snedeker paid tribute to his rivals\u2019 performance, but insisted there was still all to play for with 20 points up for grabs over the weekend.<\/p>\n
\u201cHats off to the International team,\u201d Snedeker said. \u201cThey went out there and played great and made a ton of putts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel terrible for our guys \u2013 they grinded out there and it just wasn\u2019t meant to be. But that being said, there\u2019s still 20 points out there. There\u2019s still a lot of golf here left to play,\u201d the captain added.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve said it all week \u2013 we have high-quality, high-character guys. They are fierce competitors. We\u2019re going to kind of wash this off on the way home tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The US has a 13-1-1 edge against the Internationals. AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MEDINAH \u2013 The Internationals completed a sensational foursomes clean sweep on Sept 25 to surge into a commanding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-627726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}