Golf Melbourne Signing Photos courtesy of Matt Cleary

The Internationals claw their way back. After five groups go out, all bar Jason Day has the lead. KT Kim goes on to win as predicted. Geoff Ogilvy, Charl Schwartzel and Ryo Ishikawa record wins. Adam Scott flogs Phil Mickelson. The crowd senses a shift, that something’s building. Only Day is battling, down by four in his match with Hunter Mahan. And here come the Fanatics, rallied

by Shark.

On the eighth hole, Day goes five down when a putt from off the green comes up three metres short. A Fanatic yells out, “Good effort, mate.” But Day knows it was rubbish. And no amount of happy-clapping from the green-and-gold malaria can change his numbers.

Perhaps Shark thinks otherwise. Wearing a Fanatics’ beret, he places his hands upon the youngster Day’s shoulders and fixes him with a stare, looking into his eyes, smiling. Don’t worry. Be happy! Day looks like he wants to bolt or throw-up, maybe both. A Fanatic yells out: “We got your back, Jase!” And somewhere, another puppy dies. Day will lose five and three.

And so to the 15th hole of the Ernie Els-Jim Furyk match and it’s all America here, too. He mightn’t look it, but there’s steel in Furyk; he’s of barnacle-encrusted quartzite. People have mocked his wacky swing, his bony face, but Furyk hits the golf ball pure and scraps like a fighting dog. He rolls in a birdie and kills off Els four and three. The Americans are all-but.

And here comes Tiger Woods, leading Badds “dormie” four-up with four to play. Surely this is the denouement. Woods’ third shot from the bunker rolls up to tap-in, a superb golf shot. Baddeley needs to chip-in to stay alive ... but isn’t close. The Presidents Cup is America’s.

And so the Americans get jiggy. Dressed in red, white and blue, it’s like a melange of advertisements: GAP and Ralph Lauren. It’s Vanity Fair and rich, polo America: clean-skinned and pure of pore, corpuscles rich and bubbling with densely oxygenated red blood cells. Or something like it.

Furyk hugs his wife for a long time in a manner Craig Parry, say, or Peter Lonard would not. There are back-slaps and fist-bumps and toothsome smiling. Photographers get snap happy. A kid in a chair gets a signed ball. American flag-wearing, face-painted types chant “U-S-A”. It’s an all-American keg party.

And it’s here I think: the Presidents Cup may not be the Ryder Cup nor a Major golf championship. It’s hard to support the Internationals in a tribal sort of way. We’re not Europeans. But the golf

– man oh man, the golf – is as good as the game can be played on Planet Earth. This is Super Golf. And reason enough to be in Ohio come 2013.

‒ Matt Cleary