Tiger Woods made it a perfect five wins from five matches as he crushed Y.E.Yang 6 and 5 to clinch the Presidents Cup for the United States in the concluding singles against the Internationals on Sunday.
The world number one has proved invincible all week at Harding Park in San Francisco and gained a measure of revenge on South Korean Yang, who denied him the title in the final round of this year’s PGA Championship. The decisive victory took the U.S. to the winning mark of 17 1/2 points in the biennial team event. The home side had gone into the final 12 singles matches with a three-point lead after another strong showing in fourballs and foursomes play on Saturday, with Woods and partner Steve Stricker winning both their matches for the second straight day. Woods joined his friend Mark O’Meara and Japan’s Shigeki Maruyama as the only players in the history of the Presidents Cup to boast perfect records during a match.
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He was behind early against Yang, but rolled home a string of birdie putts against a man who shocked the golfing world by coming from two shots behind Woods in the final round to claim his first major. “He got me there, and I figured I could get him here,” Woods told NBC Sports. “It certainly was not exactly the same atmosphere, but then it still was an important point.” Fred Couples’ men always looked set to clinch the trophy after British Open champion Stewart Cink gave them a winning 4 and 3 start against Adam Scott in the first match of the day. Victories quickly followed for Hunter Mahan over Camilio Villegas, Anthony Kim against Robert Allebny and Sean O’Hair over Ernie Els. Woods then closed out the victory with their fifth point of the day before Geoff Ogilvy gained a measure of respectability for the Internationals by wrecking Stricker’s perfect record with a 2 and 1 win for Greg Norman’s team. Tim Clark also shone for the visitors with an emphatic eight-birdie 4 and 3 win over Zach Johnson.
