Go Anthony Kim

by Robert Lusetich / Fox Sports

Losing to the Americans in the Presidents Cup was frustrating enough. But for Australian Robert Allenby, losing his singles match to Anthony Kim was too much to bear.

Allenby referred to an unconfirmed report — strongly denied by Kim — that the 24-year-old had been out late Saturday night.

“Maybe we should all go out ’til 4 a.m. and show up and shoot 6 under,” Allenby said.

Kim actually shot 2 under, against Allenby’s five bogeys and only two birdies.

“He’s the current John Daly,” Allenby said, “He is the loosest cannon on that team.”

Kim said he went to his room soon after the team’s dinner Saturday night.

“I hope that was a joke,” he said of Allenby’s comments.

“I was in tip-top shape.”

Kim’s attitude had been something of an issue for the American team.

Earlier in the week, U.S. captain Fred Couples had words with Kim about his behavior. Couples said Sunday that he’d been “tough” with Kim.

“Not just me, everyone in the team was,” Couples said, without identifying Kim’s indiscretions.

Couples did say, however, that Kim was the least frequent visitor to the American team room, preferring to spend time with friends.

“You’ve got to understand, he’s 24 years old,” Couples said. “He’s younger than a lot of the guys. He’s not going to want to hang out with the wives or with Kenny Perry and I.”

Couples said he thought Kim’s attitude improved throughout the week, so much so that he awarded Kim one of only four Michael Jordan limited-edition Chicago Bulls jerseys given to the Americans’ best. The other three went to Tiger Woods, Steve Stricker and Phil Mickelson.

As for Allenby, he admitted his words were spoken in frustration.

“I’m just pissed off that I lost to him,” he said. “Maybe I should’ve gone out with him.”

Kim had some different advice for Allenby.

“He needs to go practice a little bit.”

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Q. What switched?
ANTHONY KIM: I don’t know, I feel like my game’s been coming around. Unfortunately, I’ve had a tough year and I feel like Jim held me in there really good and I owe him a lot of credit because I think the match could have been over if he had not played well, so I had a great partner.

Q. How does it feel to have won a match that you never trailed in, but was never really a sure thing?
JIM FURYK: Yeah, it’s nice. That’s how all of the matches have been this week. I felt like in the middle of that round, early on, we could have put some distance between us and we didn’t and we let them hang in there; and the last few holes a lot of birdies were made. But my man came up big birdieing 15 and 17 and he held us in there, and that was the difference.

Q. Tell me how big was that up-and-down your partner made to tie that hole?
JIM FURYK: Huge. Those guys put a lot of pressure on us down the stretch. Anthony birdied 15 and 17 and more importantly we had to hit putts on top with all of the pressure riding on him.
So I’m proud of him. He hung in there today, a lot of putts burning the edge, but when he needed to, he made them.

Q. How about the 3-wood your partner hit in here on 18, you stopped what you were doing and said, “Hey, give me some of that.”
ANTHONY KIM: Absolutely. It made my shot so much easier, when he hits it in there ten feet and Angel has hit such a big drive on 18, it makes my shot a little bit harder. But Jim hit a wonderful shot in there and took a lot of the pressure off me and played great all day.

Q. Did you talk at all yesterday after the round and say, hey, maybe we need a little different game plan, or just that you’ll be ready tomorrow?
ANTHONY KIM: Jim and I agreed to play today, and he played great yesterday. Unfortunately he didn’t have a partner, but today I tried to step up my game a little bit, and Jim just kept doing what he normally does. So I feel lucky to have him as a partner and hopefully we’ll get them tomorrow.

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PGATour.com

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — For the briefest moment, it looked as though Justin Leonard only had to pick up his coin for the Americans to win the final match Thursday and take another big lead on opening day at The Presidents Cup.

First, there was some confusion over whether to concede his 3-foot putt.

Then came a shocking miss from Leonard.

The United States still wound up with a 3-2 lead at Harding Park, even if the International team claimed a partial victory.

“At the end, we were pretty fortunate to have 2 points,” Ernie Els said. “That’s one of the better starts we’ve had, believe it or not, for the last three Cups or so. So we are not too despondent about today.”

After Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker dominated early, and Phil Mickelson and Anthony Kim came to life late in their Foursomes match, a bizarre finish in the final match made it unclear who actually had the momentum going into Friday.

“We wanted to get out of the day with pretty close to a push, and I’m very, very happy,” International captain Greg Norman said.

Leonard and Jim Furyk had a 1-up lead playing the par-5 18th hole, and Leonard hit a splendid fairway metal to the green that left the Americans on the verge of another full point, especially after Furyk lagged the eagle putt to 3 feet. Retief Goosen hit his approach right of the green, Y.E. Yang chipped to 4 feet and Goosen made the birdie putt.

Then, the Goose forgot the score.

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