Team Europe remains in front after fun, hectic day at World Champions Cup

BRADENTON, Fla. – Here’s a golf secret: Pro golfers may claim that they don’t really watch scoreboards when they play, but most do. It’s human nature. However, to take a brief glance at a leaderboard Thursday on the first day of the inaugural World Champions Cup was to encounter a bit of confusion, curiosity and outright bewilderment.

There are a whole lot of points at stake at this first-time event that brings together players from the United States, Europe and the rest of the world (Team International) playing against one another over three days of stroke-based match play. How many points? Well, there are points for days, really, 648 of them, if you really need to know. Confused? The players understandably were at times. Darren Clarke at one point early in the day's proceedings saw that Team Europe had reached 29 points with play ongoing in morning Six Ball, where six golf balls (two from each team) were in play.

“Is that any good?” Clarke inquired.

It was.

Team Europe took a lead in the first session, and at day’s end still held it. Team Europe has 55.5 points and leads the Team USA (55) and Team International (51.5) sides heading into Friday, when the three teams will do it all over. Six Ball and Scotch Sixsomes again are in the offing on Day 2. On Sunday, there will be two sessions of six matches in Singles.

In Ryder Cups, there are 28 points to divide. Here, with three points up for grabs at each hole, there are 648 points at stake – a whopper of a number! The scoring is simpler than it sounds. The biggest move occurs when one team wins a hole outright, earning two of the three points. The others split the leftover point, an option like eating turkey six days after Thanksgiving.

One didn’t need the math skills of Sir Isaac Newton to deduce that whatever this week's formula, there was a great deal of excitement, fine play and plenty of team spirit and fun.

“You know, I think it's just going to be tight all the way throughout, there's just so many points out there,” said Steve Stricker, top player on Team USA's side. “Six-hundred-forty-eight points! If someone can tell me how many you need to win (he laughs), I think they would be a genius. But it's a lot of fun.”

Clarke, 55, went out first for Team Europe on Thursday alongside an old Ryder Cup standout, Scotsman Colin Montgomerie, who lives for these moments. Montgomerie turned 60 this year, but still knows when to puff out his chest when a challenge arises.

Though he and Clarke struggled in the afternoon Sixsomes session – in Sixsomes, both players on a team hit tee shots, they choose the best one, and then alternate shots in from there – they went out fast in the morning, rolling up 13 points against opponents Steven Alker and Retief Goosen (International) and Brett Quigley and David Toms (USA) Montgomerie contributed some early birdies – Clarke simply called it, “Monty doing Monty things” – and soon Clarke got going, rolling in a putt from just off the front of the green at the 550-yard par-5 eighth for eagle-3. Montgomerie stiffed an approach and made one last birdie at the par-4 ninth for good measure.

At lunch, before a quick turnaround, Team Europe led with 31.5 points, five clear of Team USA., with Team International lagging well back in third (23 points).

“You know, my first Ryder Cup in 1997 at Valderrama, Seve (Ballesteros, Europe’s captain) put me with Monty in my first baptism-by-fire Ryder Cup," Clarke said, "and we played on Saturday morning against the great Freddie Couples and Davis Love, the American dream team, and we came out on top that morning.

“I really enjoy playing in his company. He's obviously a Hall of Famer, he's done nearly everything in the game, so it's a privilege for me to play with him.”

Team International, captained by another Hall of Famer, Ernie Els, dug an early hole but fought hard in the afternoon to produce the top total in two of the three Scotch Sixsomes matches. Els paired with South Korea’s K.J. Choi to collect 10 points (edging Team USA's tandem of Steve Stricker and Billy Andrade). Fellow Team International players Alker and Goosen were steady as they edged Stricker and Andrade, 10-9.5. Els and Choi appeared as if they might surrender their lead at the last hole, but Choi made a nice pitch over the left-side bunker and Els coolly converted the 6-footer for par to tie the hole.

Justin Leonard and Jerry Kelly had the only match win for Team USA in the afternoon, and with a tie in the morning session, were the only duo to escape the day unbeaten (1-0-1).

Team USA is captained by Jim Furyk, who was scheduled to play before a bad back prevented him from doing so. His spot in the lineup was filled by Andrade, who was an assistant captain. Furyk, the current U.S. Presidents Cup captain, made his way around the golf course and overall was pretty pleased with the fight he witnessed in his team.

“I think everyone was trying to figure out the scoring process, how it was going to work for us as players, as captains,” Furyk said. “And watching my phone for scoring and seeing, I mean, just changing it every minute, I thought it was really cool.

“I think Team Europe had a pretty good-sized lead at one time, we wound up taking over (the lead), Team International made a great comeback this afternoon and scored a lot of points there in the second half of that last nine, and now all of a sudden we're all bundled up. A lot of good golf out there.”

No matter how the hard math worked out, Čejka, who has the opportunity to play with his idol this week in fellow German Bernhard Langer, wrapped up a long day by boiling things down in the simplest of terms. Team Europe sat at the very top, and there was no confusing his words.

“A lead,” reasoned Čejka, asked to assess Team Europe's opening day, “is a lead.”

Amid a sea of points, he certainly had one.