| St
Andrews, Scotland, 8th October 1998 -
John Daly resumed his love affair with the Old Course at St Andrews as the top-seeded
U.S. team crushed England 3-0 on Thursday in their opening match of the Alfred
Dunhill Cup. On
a gloriously sunny day at the Home of Golf, Wild Thing Daly overcame early erratic
driving to come from behind and beat Lee Westwood by three shots with a two-under-par
70. Daly's performance
justified captain Mark O'Meara's decision to send him out first against the in-form
Westwood. "He's
proven he can get he job done and he can play wherever he wants to play now,"
O'Meara said. Daly's
victory in the first match of the tie was, however almost academic as world number
one Tiger Woods and number four O'Meara had already established big leads against
David Carter and Peter Baker. Woods
shot 66 and Masters and British Open champion O'Meara 67 to win by eight and seven
shots. In the
other tie in group one, eighth-seeded Sweden beat Japan 3-0. In
group two Scotland, losers in other years to Paraguay and India, beat debutants
China 2-1 even though world number six Colin Montgomerie lost his match 72-73
to Zhang Lian-wei. Second-seeded
Australia beat Argentina 3-0 in group three where the only upset of the day occurred,
seventh-seeded New Zealand going down 2-1 to South Korea. Third-seeded
Zimbabwe and defending champions South Africa, seeded sixth, both won their matches
3-0 against Germany and France in group four. Daly,
the 1991 PGA champion, was on the winning team on his first visit to the Old Course
for this event in 1993 and won the British Open here in 1995. Yet, for the first
six holes on Thursday he looked like a stranger in a strange land. But
once he sorted out his driving, the recovering alcoholic was unstoppable and three
birdies in four holes from the ninth set up his victory. "I
was cutting every ball right. So I teed the ball up higher and swung through it
harder to make sure I came through the ball," he said. "Lee's
playing off to be European number one and to beat him builds confidence for me,"
Daly said. "It's
a good feeling and I like the way I played. This course inspires me all the time,"
said the 1991 PGA champion, who suffered an attack of the shakes and chills during
a tournament in Canada six weeks ago and has scarcely played since. Woods,
in his first Dunhill Cup though he played the 1995 British Open as an amateur
and tied for 68th, was in perfect control of his distance as he overwhelmed Irish
Open champion Carter. Carter
bogeyed the third hole to fall two behind as Woods birdied, then a double bogey
at the 13th when he found a bad lie after his drive and then hit into a deep pot
bunker scuppered his hopes. Baker
lost his ball in a thick bush at the second and needed a second drive on the way
to a double bogey six against O'Meara, who might have been four ahead but for
missed putts from six feet and four feet at the first two holes. Baker
got back to within one with a birdie at the seventh. But O'Meara birdied the ninth,
10th and 13th and then eagled the long 14th to seize control. Sweden's
Patrik Sjoland and Per-Ulrik Johansson won by eight and five shots against weak
Japanese opponents Hiroyuki Fujita and Katsumasa Miyamoto while European Open
champion Mathias Gronberg shot 78 and still beat Nobuo Serizawa by a stroke. Montgomerie
was rescued by team mates Andrew Coltart and rookie Gary Orr. Coltart carded a
73 to beat Cheng Jun by five but Orr, scraped through only when Wu Xiang-bing
overplayed his approach to the last and three-putted for a bogey five.
| 
