Alternating Agony at Presidents Cup

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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Golfers are individualists, accustomed to running in a pack of one. They grow up believing it perfectly OK not to play well with others.

My ball. My routine. My shot. By prevailing PGA Tour player logic, adding a second swing to a game played solo is akin to putting two quarterbacks under center.

Maybe that is why during Thursday's opening round at Harding Park Golf Club made so many players appear to have so many signals crossed.

One example: American Justin Leonard walked up to a three-foot putt on the 18th green that could have given him and partner Jim Furyk the match. But somewhere in the process, Leonard became confused -- not sure if Retief Goosen, playing with Y.E. Yang, was conceding the putt or not.

"Retief thought the match was over," Leonard said. "We weren't sure if he was giving up the putt or what. Don't know. I just hit a bad putt."

The Internationals halved the match. Instead of a sizable first-day lead, the U.S. holds a 3½-2½ advantage.

"Just when you think you've got the game under control, this format gets you," International captain Greg Norman said.

Even success can sometimes be hard to explain.

The International Team's twosome of Ernie Els and Adam Scott did not make their first birdie of the day until the 16th hole and still won their match 2 and 1 over American's Sean O'Hair and Hunter Mahan.

"It's just harder to get your rhythm really, I find," Scott said, explaining the every-other-shot routine. "I didn't hit a putt for about eight holes and then all of a sudden, you have a putt that counts. It's hard to get your rhythm. Ernie might have felt like he didn't hit any iron shots."

To the other extreme, Americans Anthony Kim and Phil Mickelson birdied four holes in a row -- Nos. 13 through 16 -- to finish off Mike Weir and Tim Clark 3 up. The result, according to Mickelson, fueled by one shot he had nothing to do with.

The Americans were laboring along, one down, then Kim knocked a wedge shot stiff at 13 to set up birdie and suddenly both were one.

"We just needed one little thing to go our way," Mickelson said. "AK hit a shot in there to three feet and that kind of carried us through. We needed something to ignite us and that wedge shot sure did the trick."

Kim wondered what took so long.

"That's very nice of him to say, but we all know that I was the weight of about 400 pounds out there on the first couple of holes," he said. "Phil did a great job of picking me up and we stayed positive."

That's the fun part. Nobody ever knows how two golfers are going to play one ball.

Physically it's a half-day's work. Emotionally, it's double-time.

"I'm tired and I've only been out here four hours," Couples said. "It's mentally exhausting. It's the weirdest thing ever."

The idea is for each team's captain to match players whose games are reasonably alike. Never put long and wild with short and straight. It also helps if they do not really, really dislike each other. Another consideration -- much more important to the players than anyone else might believe -- is pairing the same brand of golf balls. Try not to put the Hatfields with the Nikes, or the McCoys with the Titleists, although that's exactly what happened with the American twosome of Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker.

On this occasion, they seemed to have managed. Woods-Stricker dished out a 6 and 4 thrashing to Geoff Ogilvy and Ryo Ishikawa.

And, for the record, the team played a Nike ball on the holes that Woods hit the tee shot and a Titleist when Stricker was the designated driver.

If you still are not convinced this is not your typical opening day of a golf tournament, then consider what happened at the third hole of the Woods-Stricker vs. Ogilvy-Ishikawa match.

As Ogilvy was preparing for a putt to halve the hole, the cell phone of a elderly volunteer rang continually.

"Yeah, that was a little awkward," Woods said. "I mean, the cell phone went off I bet five times."

Finally, with technology silenced, Ogilvy stood over his ball and just as he drew back the putter, a spectator called out "Noonan," urban slang from the movie "Caddyshack" for "miss it."

Ogilvy did.

"Absolutely uncalled for," Woods said. "You could hear some of the guys in the gallery actually get on this guy about sportsmanship. We all felt bad for Geoff because that's not the situation you want to be put in."

The day was tough enough already.