FanHouse Tim Clark

SAN FRANCISCO -- Tiger Woods debuted this week as the first billion-dollar athlete. If that thought left you bemused, perplexed or angry, Woods showed Saturday why people throw money at him.

He's worth it.

Example No. 3,539 -- With the International team losing its grip on the Presidents Cup, he made a 24-foot putt to tie his match on the 17th hole. His next swing was a 229-yard laser that ended up 15 feet from the hole.

The International team of Mike Weir and Tim Clark literally surrendered.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Steve Stricker and Tiger Woods had just improved their Presidents Cup record together this week to 4-0 and were about to do the obligatory network interview Saturday evening when a leather-lunged voice from bleachers behind 16 green stopped everything.

"Wisconsin and Stanford in the Rose Bowl!!"

Sticker laughed out loud. Even Woods, who can ignore a marching band, turned to look into the stands, shook his head in disbelief and responded with a smile. Some things just are not going to happen, but this week at Harding Park Golf Club the loud guy was on the right track. Stricker, a big cheese in Wisconsin, and Woods, the Stanford dropout, are the granddaddy of all golf pairings.

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He is Tiger Woods, and sometimes, it seems we forget this. He wins six events in 2009 and we complain about his performances at the majors. He is one of the better match play golfers to ever wrap his hands around a cord grip, yet we worry about his team record.

And then he goes and does stuff like he did Saturday morning at Harding Park in San Francisco, and we remember, this guy is so good at golf it's sickening. Playing alongside Steve Stricker for the third time this week at the Presidents Cup, Woods and Stricker found themselves in trouble. Serious trouble. Needing a 22-footer for birdie on 17 just to say in the match, Tiger eyed the putt with the International team of Mike Weir and Tim Clark in tight for birdie.

Woods' putt looked like it might be short the whole way, but one more revolution lead to the biggest Woods fist pump since the 2005 chip-in at Augusta National and a breath of air to Fred Couples' A team. Weir missed the short birdie, and the match went to 18 all square.

There, Tiger did something only Tiger can do.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The greatest shots in Presidents Cup history? No, not a chance. All the same, Justin Leonard played them perfectly.

Let's talk shot making.

He drained them.

"It was knowing I needed to come out and play well today," he said.

Leonard teamed with Phil Mickelson for Friday's Presidents Cup second round and played top shelf. He birdied the first hole to get the American twosome going in the best-ball competition. He kept pounding until finally rolling in a 12-footer at No. 16 to finish off the International team of Retief Goosen and Adam Scott 3 and 2.

It was a performance instrumental in allowing the United State to lead 6½-5½ going into Saturday's third round.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Of all the various formats used during four days of this week's Presidents Cup match-play competition, alternate shot is the indisputable meat grinder.

Two golfers with a single golf ball. One player hits a shot, the other finds it and gets to take the next whack.

Rinse and repeat as necessary.

"Alternate shot -- we all know it's difficult," U.S. captain Fred Couples said. "But it's also an emotional thing."

Copy that, as Jack Bauer would say.

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It was a smart move by American captain Fred Couples. Put Phil Mickelson, a veteran to The Presidents Cup, and Anthony Kim, a rookie, together a year after they had much success at the Ryder Cup. The Lefty-AK duo not only picked up right where they left off, but they did it in, what else, dramatic fashion.

After starting out sloppy, Kim and Mickelson found their groove on the par-4 13th, when Kim hit a short wedge shot inside of three feet, something Mickelson said afterward "ignited them." After Phil cleaned up the birdie there to go all square, the team reeled off three more birdies to beat Mike Weir and Tim Clark 3 and 2.

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SAN FRANCISCO -- The eighth Presidents Cup begins play Thursday afternoon at Harding Park Golf Club, but the action started Wednesday when team captains, American Fred Couples and International Greg Norman, matched twosomes for six first-round foursome matches.

The alternate-shot competition will begin at 12:10 p.m. PDT with the International pairing of Canadian Mike Weir and South African Tim Clark taking on Americans Anthony Kim and Phil Mickelson.

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Greg Norman will play hurt at next week's Presidents Cup.

OK, as captain of the International Team that is taking on the Americans at San Francisco's Harding Park Golf Club, Norman will not hit a shot, but no question he is ailing.

Captain Shark has his right arm in a sling, the result of arthroscopic shoulder surgery performed Wednesday.

"A bit of a surprise," Norman said Friday. "I was trying to delay it until January of next year, but the doctor said I needed to get it done now."

It's been six weeks since Phil Mickelson walked off Bethpage Black carrying a barrel of emotions which pulled at the left-hander. Mickelson finished second at the U.S. Open that week, but his mind went immediately from the golf to the family, to caring for wife Amy and mother Mary as they battled breast cancer simultaneously.

Now, back in the field at his first PGA Tour tournament since June 21, the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, Mickelson struggled on his first nine holes before closing with a 3-under inward nine to shoot an even-par 70. The round, which was capped with a 12-foot par save on his final hole of the day, has Lefty four shots back of the leaders, but in a better position than he was in when he started the round.