2015 Presidents Cup: A step in the right direction

In professional sports style points and moral victories rank right up there with participation medals.

As former New York Jets head coach Herman Edwards once opined, “You play to win the game.” Yet while it wasn’t the outcome Nick Price had envisioned or hoped for there was no hiding a sense of measured accomplishment over the International team’s best showing in more than a decade in the Presidents Cup.

“I think it was 1983 when Europe lost by a point, Seve [Ballesteros] was in the locker room, and all the European players were down in the dumps and they were very depressed that they had lost,” Price said. “He looked at them all and said, ‘No, no, don’t be depressed. This is like a victory for us. We only need one more point.’”

It wasn’t the perfect script as Bill Haas and Sangmoon Bae made their way up the 18th fairway in the day’s last two-ball on Sunday with the U.S. assured at least a tie, but it was closer than it had been in more than a decade. After five consecutive American blowouts in the biennial event Price was willing to embrace progress, however measured it may be.

It was competitive, it was compelling and, at least on this side of the international date line, it was captivating thanks to an International rally that seemed about as likely as an American collapse as a gloomy morning got underway at Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea…