Captain Woods sends himself out in 1st Presidents Cup match

 Tiger Woods deferred first pick for pairings in Presidents Cup, and n made sure he was in opening match Thursday against Australian who led qualifying for International team at Royal Melbourne.

Woods is first playing captain since Hale Irwin in inaugural Presidents Cup in 1994, and first captain to be pick himself with a wild-card selection after winning in Japan for his 82nd career PGA Tour victory.

Woods said Steve Stricker, one of his three assistants, would serve as captain while he was playing. Stricker was U.S. captain at 2017 Presidents Cup.

Americans are defending champions and had first pick who y wanted for first of five fourballs matches. Instead, Woods let International captain Ernie Els start, and Els sent out Marc Leishman with Joaquin Niemann of Chile, one of a record-tying seven rookies on his team.

Patrick Reed, subject of so much conversation this week from his rules violation in Bahamas last week, is in fourth spot with Webb Simpson. y play Hideki Matsuyama and C.T. Pan.

All five of U.S. partnerships are new for a Presidents Cup or a Ryder Cup.

Dustin Johnson, who competes for first time since Aug. 25 at Tour Championship, has played with Matt Kuchar in various team events. This time he will have Presidents Cup newcomer Gary Woodland, giving U.S. a big-hitting team on short, fast track of Royal Melbourne. y will face Abraham Ancer and Louis Oosthuizen.

In or matches, Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay give Americans an all-rookie team against Adam Hadwin and Sungjae Im, while Bryson DeChambeau and Tony Finau face Adam Scott and Byeong Hun An.

Woods opted to sit out Matt Kuchar and Rickie Fowler, last addition to U.S. team when Brooks Koepka had to withdraw with a knee injury. Els left out Li Haotong and Cameron Smith, one of three Aussies on International team.

Friday’s second session features five foursomes matches, with four matches of each format on Saturday and 12 singles matches on Sunday.

Key for International team is a strong start. Americans have dominated this event, winning 10 out of 12 times and tying one event in South Africa. More telling of one-sided nature of se matches is that Americans have t trailed after any session since second day in 2005.

“Whoever is out re, it’s most important match of week for m,” Scott said. “We have to get off to a good start — as long as we can hang with m. Tomorrow is t super important, but our team doesn’t need to be chasing its tail out here. We don’t need to be mounting a huge comeback.”