USA beat International team 19-11 to claim seventh straight Presidents Cup title
The United States earned a convincing 19-11 Presidents Cup victory over the International team at Liberty National Golf Club on Sunday.
Needing just one point entering the singles matches after a dominant first three days, the defending champions sealed a seventh straight title when rookie Daniel Berger went three up with three to play in the fourth match against Kim Si-woo.
Kevin Chappell had the first crack at sealing the title, but he halved his match against Marc Leishman.
Charley Hoffman, who had been paired with Chappell on Saturday with a chance to clinch the Cup a day early, was then awarded an opportunity to retain the trophy, but went down two and one to Jason Day.
Proving their resiliency, the Internationals would not be defeated on the third match, either, as Hideki Matsuyama caught fire to beat Justin Thomas three and one.
Berger was assured of at the least the half point the USA needed when he preserved a three-shot advantage at 15 before going on to win two and one.
.@DanielBerger59 is the youngest player to clinch the #PresidentsCup. Time to celebrate for the #USTeam pic.twitter.com/BUJR13W3dw
— Presidents Cup (@PresidentsCup) October 1, 2017
“Captain (Steve) Stricker came up to me on 16 and told me that we had clinched it. What a feeling,” Berger said after his round. “We’ve been here for the last week and playing for this for months. It’s just a great feeling.
“It was more about the team. It wasn’t about me. I was just really happy to be able to close out my match today. Si Woo played great. We exchanged a bunch of birdie putts coming down the stretch, and it just so happened I came out on the right side of that.”
South African duo Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen beat Matt Kuchar and Patrick Reed respectively, while Adam Scott claimed a three and two success over Brooks Koepka and Jhonattan Vegas secured a memorable two and one success over Jordan Spieth.
Phil Mickelson saw off Adam Hadwin two and one, with Rickie Fowler a crushing six and four winner over Emiliano Grillo. Dustin Johnson and Branden Grace had to settle for a half and the same goes for Kevin Kisner and Anirban Lahiri.
The USA has now won 10 of the 12 Presidents Cup events to be staged, their only loss coming back in 1998.
