MELBOURNE, Australia — Tiger Woods wasted no time putting himself in play at the 13th Presidents Cup. The first playing captain since Hale Irwin in 1998 tabbed himself as part of the first pairing for the United States in the Four-Ball matches set to begin Thursday morning (Wednesday afternoon in the U.S.) at Royal Melbourne Golf Club.
Woods will team with Justin Thomas to take on Marc Leishman of Australia and Joaquin Niemann of Chile. The next pairing will pit rookies Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay of the U.S. against Adam Hardwin of Canada and Sungjae Im of South Korea. The third pairing will have Adam Scott of Australia and Byeong Hun An of South Korea going against Bryson DeChambeau and Tony Finau.
Webb Simpson and Patrick Reed will team in the fourth pairing against Hideki Matsuyama from Japan and C.T. Pan of Chinese Taipei. The final pairing has Abraham Ancer of Mexico and Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa going against Dustin Johnson and Gary Woodland.
Woods said he had “zero” hesitation about putting himself in the opening group.
“We had a game plan, who we wanted to start out,” Woods said. “We were committed to putting Justin and myself out there so that’s who we’re rolling with.”
It will be interesting to see how the crowd reacts to the opening pairing. Leishman grew up not far from Melbourne and is popular in Australia. But so is Woods.
“There’s enough Australians out there to rally a lot of guys,” said Ernie Els, who will captain the International Team. “As I said we are all one this week: Australians, South Africans, the whole Internationals. Hopefully, they will support us very nicely and very fair.”
The U.S. vice-captain, Steve Stricker, will assume the role of captain while Woods is playing.
You can tell the visiting Americans from the locals. They’re the ones swatting the flies. The pesky insects are everywhere at the Presidents Cup, constantly landing on players’ clothing and even on their faces. The locals just ignore them.
“They’re destroying me,” said Justin Thomas. “I had a couple that were on my face and wouldn’t get off. It’s definitely something I’ve never experienced.”
Schauffele, one of four rookies on the U.S. squad, along with Cantlay, Finau and Woodland, said his knees will be shaking when he hits his first ball in competition.
“It’s weird,” he said. “There’s a certain level of discomfort just because I’ve never done certain things. But at the end of the day, if I just do what I normally do, which is to play golf, that’s kind of all that there is to do.”