Unlikely stars lift US team

INCHEON, South Korea  – The final hour when both teams thought they had it won. The clutch putt that turned a rookie into the hero. The stubbed chip that made the local star cover his face with both hands as if he wanted to hide.

The Presidents Cup, packed with raw emotion and endless nerves, was unlike any other over the last 10 years.

Except for the outcome.

The Americans won for the sixth straight time Sunday when Chris Kirk made a 15-foot birdie putt to win his match in a stunning turnaround on the final hole, and Bill Haas provided a storybook ending with the winning point for his team and for his father.

“A moment I’ll never forget,” US captain Jay Haas said, so choked up when it ended that he couldn’t speak.

Haas used a captain’s pick on his son, sent him off in the 12th and final singles match at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea and then saw Bill Haas hit all the right shots to hold off Bae Sang-moon for a 2-up victory.

The 15 1/2-14 1/2 margin was the slimmest since the famous tie in South Africa in 2003. Not since 2005 has the Presidents Cup been decided by the final match.

That’s what the International team wanted when it demanded the number of matches be reduced (from 34 to 30). It almost got something even better – the shiny gold trophy that again stays with the Americans.

“Irrelevant of the outcome – we obviously would have loved to have won – we put on a show of golf this week,” captain Nick Price said.

The final session was not without its share of heartbreak.

Anirban Lahiri, the first player from India to make the International team, battled Kirk shot-for-shot over the final hour holes and looked like a winner when he played a delicate pitch to perfection on the par-5 18th and had 4 feet for birdie. Kirk’s chip ran 15 feet by. Based on the status of other matches still on the course, it looked like the International team would finally emerge a winner.

And then Kirk made his putt on the final turn, and one of the most stoic players on the PGA Tour unleashed a fist pump.

Moments later, Lahiri missed.

His putt caught the right edge of the cup and spun out, and he dropped his putter over his back in disbelief.

“I have to give credit to Chris for making that putt,” Lahiri said. “These things are scripted, I guess, and I wasn’t in the script this time.”