Jay Haas Tuesday backed his decision to give a Presidents Cup captain’s pick to veteran Phil Mickelson, saying the five-time Major winner offered something “intangible” to his US team. As the players headed out for their first full day of practice at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club in the South Korean city of Incheon, Haas strongly defended his decision to choose Mickelson as one of two picks in his 12-man
By Peter Rutherford INCHEON, South Korea (Reuters) – Jason Day would relish the chance to go head-to-head with world No. 1 Jordan Spieth in the Presidents Cup but the Australian hotshot knows the showdown may not materialize as team tactics take precedence over individual glory. Day and Spieth electrified the Tour this year with their budding rivalry played out on the grandest of stages. American Spieth claimed two majors among
By Peter Rutherford INCHEON, South Korea (Reuters) – It has been a sub-par year by Phil Mickelson’s own lofty standards, and some eyebrows were raised when he was selected for the Presidents Cup, but for U.S. skipper Jay Haas, the 45-year-old’s experience and “intangibles” were hard to overlook. Haas sprang something of a surprise by using a captain’s pick on Mickelson last month, who was 30th in the Presidents Cup
Captain Nick Price paid tribute Tuesday to Anirban Lahiri — the first Indian to play in the Presidents Cup and the joker in the pack of his International team. “He brings a great sense of humour to the team,” Price told a news conference at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club in Incheon, venue for the 11th Presidents Cup which is being hosted for the first time in Asia and begins
By Peter Rutherford INCHEON, South Korea (Reuters) – International captain Nick Price predicted a wonderful week of entertaining golf for fans at the Presidents Cup on Tuesday, but after a decade of demoralizing defeats he would surely settle for winning ugly against another powerful United States team. Such has been the United States’ dominance in the biennial team event critics have begun to label it an “exhibition” rather than a
By Robin Emmott BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO on Tuesday rejected Moscow’s explanation that its warplanes violated the air space of alliance member Turkey at the weekend by mistake and said Russia was sending more ground troops to Syria and building up its naval presence. With Russia extending its air strikes to include the ancient city of Palmyra, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said he was losing patience with Russian violations of
By Mohammed Mukhashaf ADEN, Yemen (Reuters) – Islamic State in Yemen on Tuesday claimed coordinated suicide bombings targeting the Yemeni government and the Arab military coalition in the southern city of Aden that killed 15 Arab and Yemeni troops. The bombings were Islamic State’s first known attacks on the Yemeni administration, which had made the al-Qasr hotel in the northwest of the port city its headquarters since it returned to
By Patricia Zengerle and Yeganeh Torbati WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The deadly air strike that hit a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz was a mistake made within the U.S. chain of command, the American commander of international forces in Afghanistan said on Tuesday. The strike on Saturday on an Afghan hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, or Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), killed 22 people and deeply angered the medical
Syrian state television and a monitoring group said on Tuesday that Russian jets hit Islamic State targets in the Syrian city of Palmyra and the northern province of Aleppo, in some of the heaviest Russian attacks on the hardline Islamist group. Local activists said that Russian war planes killed at least 12 people from two families in the city. Syria’s state television said the strikes destroyed 20 vehicles and three
By Mirwais Harooni KABUL (Reuters) – Taliban fighters on motorbikes have carried out hit-and-run attacks on Afghan forces trying to clear Kunduz city of insurgents, more than a week after the militant movement briefly seized the provincial capital. Adopting new tactics, Taliban fighters have been firing at security forces at checkpoints and then melting away into residential areas, rather than directly engaging in gun battles, said Hamdullah Danishi, acting governor
