Sunday 2 October 2016 03:02, UK
Davis Love III has paid credit to vice-captain Tiger Woods for his team selection influence, as the USA extended their lead heading in to the final day of the Ryder Cup.
The hosts won three of their fourballs on Saturday to take a three-point lead in to the Sunday singles, where they look to claim a first Ryder Cup victory since 2008 and only their second in eight attempts.
Love had been unsure who to name for his afternoon pairings after the USA had only picked up 1.5 points in the earlier foursomes, and had considered leaving out Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed.
Woods was insistent they should play and Love supported the decision, with the pair responded from their earlier foursomes collapse to dispatch Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson 2&1.
"We all kind of had a little bit (of a) different idea - even my son threw a line-up out and he's my cart driver," Love said. "Obviously Tiger's watched the same guys play all week so I finally just said to Tiger 'are we playing them or are we sitting them?'
"He said 'No, you have to send them back out there, they are playing so well'. The four teams we thought were the best and we trusted the most, we would send out there."
The US captain will send Reed and Spieth out first and second on Sunday to face Rory McIlroy, Europe's best player of week, and Stenson, respectively.
"I've obviously been around a lot of teams and it was no secret they were going to load the boat," added Love. "So our problem, again, was do we say 'all right, we're going to put the six guys out (first) that are playing really well.
"Well, we've got 12 that are playing really well, so we didn't know what to do. We had guys that wanted to get going, guys that wanted a little more time, guys that wanted to play close to each other.
"We got what we expected from Darren and I'm sure he didn't expect anything different from us."
