2015 Presidents Cup: Tee times, pairings and match schedule for Friday

These are dire times for the Presidents Cup. The week in Korea started with International captain Nick Price saying the entire event may be doomed if his squad could not make it competitive this year. The run of recent American blowouts, it seems, has resigned some of the International’s top players to the point of questioning whether they should even use a week on their annual schedule to patronize this event. The International side is 1-8-1 in the 20-year history of the event, and it’s not been a particularly close contest in more than a decade.

So with the viability of the contest possibly on the line, the Internationals went out in Thursday’s opening session and laid another egg. The Americans dominated the alternate-shot Foursomes session yet again, taking four of five of points and with minimal challenge in all four of those wins. The USA team is loaded with world-class talent, and talent that is finishing up a year on form. So an International win was always going to be against the odds, but Thursday’s start was a depressing rout.

The poor start makes Friday’s four-ball session maybe the most important set of matches in the event’s history. There are just five of the possible 30 points up for grabs, but another session loss by the Internationals means this competition is over and the weekend will be spent just playing out the string. Some think it’s already over after just five matches, and the USA are now -900 to win the Cup.

It’s a desperate time for Price, and as such he’s changing it up for Friday’s session and throwing everything he has at the Americans. He’ll lead off with Branden Grace and Louis Oosthuizen, the South African duo that earned the only International point on Thursday in a convincing win over Pat Reed and Matt Kuchar. One of the biggest challenges for the International side is molding a team out of a group that hails from many different countries and continents with language and cultural barriers. Those don’t exist with Grace and Oosthuizen, who are close friends and often play together. They may be the International’s best hope this week and they draw the USA power pairing of Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson in the critical leadoff match on Day 2.

That strength vs. strength opening match may set the tone for the rest of the weekend, but more fans will probably follow the second group off instead. That’s where Price, in an attempt to whip up the Korean crowd, paired together the only two Korean-born players on the roster. Danny Lee is a New Zealand citizen, but he was born nearby this course in Incheon. Sangmoon Bae is the lone Korean on the team and he’ll make his Presidents Cup debut after he was curiously put on the bench for the opening session. Price said he benched Bae because he was partnered up with Charl Schwartzel, who was sick and could not go on Thursday. But then he set the Day 2 lineup with both of those players coming off the bench, just not together -- another sign that he’s scrambling to throw whatever he can at the Americans in this critical session.

Another sign is Price’s move to put the two superstar Aussies together, Jason Day and Adam Scott. The two have played together in this event before and had success, and also won the two-man World Cup event. But it’s risky to put such power together, because if they go down then it’s a demoralizing loss for the entire team. Spreading them out, where they can pick up and carry two lesser players, can be a better strategy They should be formidable in the best-ball format, in which the Internationals have posted a winning record since 2007.

The lineup changes all look fine on paper for the International team, and then you see who’s on the other side. American captain Jay Haas kept all four of his winning teams together and will send them out in the first four matches of the day. Price’s moves may not matter. They probably need to win at least three of the five points to keep this respectable heading into the weekend. Here’s the full match schedule for Day 2: