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Jack Nicklaus was especially full of praise for his players after a morning session that saw the USA square the match at 5½ a-piece after starting the day one point behind.

"I think that we had some matches yesterday that were obviously not to our liking at the finish, just because the players didn't finish them. Today the guys finished off what they had to do."

International skipper Gary Player, when asked to reflect on Tim Clark's performance in beating Tiger Woods and Charles Howell III 5&3 with Ernie Els, gave a gushing tribute.

"I thought he did extremely well. Big pressure for him playing with Ernie and with Tiger at the same time," said Player.

"To start off and put the ball that close to the hole, the first hole,  was a big boost for him and he holed a lot of crucial putts at the right time. I think that was a great victory to give him a lot of confidence.

"It was outstanding. We were really thrilled with his play. I think playing with Ernie, too, was a big factor comfort-wise, encouragement-
wise, etc."

Nicklaus went on to comment on why he thought World No. 1 Woods has such a poor record in both Ryder Cup and President Cup format.

"I think that if you went by President's Cup or Ryder Cup records, Tiger would be the logical one to be sitting out this afternoon.

"Or actually he would have been the logical one sitting this morning because his fourball record has not been particularly good. But, you know, I think that if I didn't play him, both Tiger and the whole of South Africa would shoot me too."

"Tiger did not play well this morning. He struggled with his shots.

"Sometimes when you're playing for yourself, you can play hard. You can concentrate and focus because there's nobody else to back you up.

"Sometimes when you feel like there's somebody else there, you sometimes try to do things you maybe shouldn't do and all of a sudden you make more mistakes. I know I find myself doing that. I'm speaking more for myself than I am for him."

His thoughts on Phil Mickelson, a loser in both of his opening two matches with David Toms?

"Mickelson has been hard to find but we've seen him" (to much laughter). "He'll do fine. He is so anxious to play and play well.

"I've never seen a guy - I've had Phil on teams before - and I've never seen him so enthused and anxious to want to play well."

Nicklaus went on to say that Davis Love III had asked to be rested for the afternoon's foursomes due to a twinge in his neck that he had picked up earlier in the week.

The other US player rested was veteran Jay Haas.

Meanwhile Gary Player opted to leave out Aussie Stuart Appleby and the highly popular Zimbabwean Nick Price.

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