Melbourne, Australia

Freddie Couples didn't give any rah-rah speeches to the United States team prior to Sunday's singles finale. He just wanted his team to go out and play golf.

Couples got a mixed bag from his team at Royal Melbourne but it was good enough for the Americans to keep the Presidents Cup with a 19-15 victory.

Couples had been criticized by International captain Greg Norman for picking Tiger Woods and ironically, it was Woods who scored the point that gave the cup to the American side. Woods, playing in the next-to-last match, defeated Aaron Baddeley, 3-and-2, to secure the win for his team.

Woods played the best of perhaps any player on either team in the singles matches. He was five-under par through 15 holes on a windy, difficult day as he dispatched Baddeley.

"He was ready for a month," Couples said after the matches. "I couldn't answer how he was going to play but this week I think he showed to himself that his swing is back and he's healthy."

Woods hit nearly every fairway and green in his match. "I'm very pleased with the progress I've made with Sean (Foley) and it's finally paying off under pressure," Woods said.

While Woods played well, some big American names did not. Webb Simpson, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson and Bill Haas went out first and the Internationals defeated all of them. K.T. Kim beat Simpson 1-up, Charl Schwartzel took down Johnson, 2-and-1, Ryo Ishikawa beat Watson, 3-and-2 then Geoff Ogilvy won 2-up over Haas.

Hunter Mahan and Nick Watney stopped the bleeding in the middle matches. Mahan slammed Jason Day, 5-and-3 then Watney best K.J. Choi, 3-and-2.

Phil Mickelson got off to a horrible start and never recovered, eventually losing to Adam Scott, 2-and-1 and Matt Kuchar was beaten 1-up by Retief Goosen.

Jim Furyk, along with Woods, led the charge in the last four matches. Furyk went a perfect 5-0 for the week with a win over Ernie Els, Woods took down Baddeley, David Toms beat Robert Allenby and Steve Stricker took care of Y.E. Yang as the Americans took the final four points.

Norman gave credit to the U.S. team for its strong play in the alternate-shot formats in the matches. "When you look back over all the days fo competition, our foursomes let us down," Norman pointed out.

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