PGA Tournaments' News

The 23rd PGA Cup is hanging on a knife-edge after a gripping morning's foursomes over the Oconee Course at Reynolds Plantation, Georgia.

America sneaked the session 2½-1½ to go into the afternoon fourballs with the match all square at 6-6.

The tension was super-charged with three of the matches going right down to the wire including West Country stalwarts Jon Bevan and George Ryall who survived a late scare to win 2UP against Alan Schulte and Don Yrene.

The fiercely competitive Bevan remains undefeated with a 2½ points haul from three matches, and was again an inspirational figure for GB&I as repeated yesterday's success with Ryall.

"I've had three great matches now against six great players," he said. "Looking at the board we really needed that point.

"You've got to take your hats off to those guys, their 10 are just as strong as our 10 and this could go either way.

"We expected them to make birdie on every hole, but we were playing well enough. It's all about the point, though. We'd happily of played ugly and won the point, but as it turned out we played great - and we needed to beat those guys.

"We didn't play a bad shot after going 5UP so to drag us to the last is great.

"We've got nothing but respect for these guys because they're so good, but if they're going to beat us they're going to have to work as hard as we are to salvage something out of these matches."

Ryall has proved a strong card for captain Gary Alliss, delivering maximum points from his two outings and helping GB&I to their best ever first day score on US soil, but the 48-year-old expects it to be tight right to the finish.

"Most of the games have come down to the very end and it's because they are just so strong and in the end it will come down to who gets the lucky breaks," he said.

Michael Nesbit in the final pairing alongside Craig Goodfellow went agonisingly close to earning a half but saw his seven foot putt shave the hole to end their valiant fight back against Ron Philo Jnr and Tim Thelen who had been cruising at three up with three to play.

America had earlier drawn first blood, notching up the first point of the day when Chip Sullivan and Chris Starkjohann swept aside Duncan Muscroft and Andrew Barnett 3&2.

The balance then tilted back to GB&I as Derbyshire duo Paul Wesselingh and James Whatley in the first match out inflicted a body blow on Mike Small and Ryan Benzel by snatching the 18th for a halve.

Wesselingh typically displayed nerves of steel to sink the crucial putt from four feet and credited a mid-round putting lesson from Whatley.

"I wasn't too nervous on that final putt," he said.

"James gave me a few tips on the way round because I'd been missing a few short putts because the greens are so quick and James thought I was moving a bit too much and I was fine after that.

"It was a real tough match - any match in foursomes is tough. And to get a result like that was fantastic."

"Someone said to us that's the best first day ever on American soil," he added.

"They're coming back at us a bit today but we're still confident we can win.

"It can go either way but at least we've made a match of it. The last few matches I've been over here we've been slaughtered the first couple of days but we're making a fight of it this year."

Whatley, the youngster team member on either side, was again enjoying every minute of the experience and revealed his agonising miss on 17 had spurred him on for the last hole.

"Six inches from the hole and I thought it was in and even closer I thought it was in, but that's golf," he said.

"But it pumped me up going into 18 and I play my best golf when I'm a bit fired up and to stand there on 18 I knew that drive wasn't going anywhere else than on the fairway."

Pairings for this afternoon are confirmed as follows: