Wednesday 7 October 2015 10:42, UK
Danny Lee and Marc Leishman have been handed the daunting task of taking on Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson in Thursday's opening foursomes as the International team take on the United States at the Presidents Cup in South Korea.
The foursomes, where players hit alternate shots with the same ball, will also see the Internationals' 2013 pairing of Adam Scott and Hideki Matsuyama reunited to face Bubba Watson and JB Holmes in the opening match.
South Africans Louis Oosthuizen and Branden Grace are up against Matt Kuchar and Patrick Reed and Asian pair Anirban Lahiri and Thongchai Jaidee play Rickie Fowler and Jimmy Walker.
Australian duo Jason Day and Steven Bowditch will take on Phil Mickelson and Zach Johnson.
After US captain Jay Haas and his International counterpart Nick Price decided the match-ups, it was the pairing of world No 1 Spieth and big-hitting Johnson, who will play in the last match out, that attracted the most attention at the Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea.
Spieth, a captain's pick two years ago, claimed two majors among his five wins this year and ended the season with a flourish with victory at the Tour Championship last month.
Dustin Johnson returned to the Tour after taking time off in 2014 for personal reasons and had three top-10 finishes in the majors, including a heartbreaking near miss at the US Open when a missed three-foot putt handed the title to Spieth.
Haas confirmed the pair had asked to be put together and shed some light on Spieth's huge influence on the game.
"Jordan and Dustin, they have been wanting this for a while, wanting this pairing. And what Jordan wants, Jordan gets right now," said Haas, adding that Reed had also been keen to partner up with Spieth.
"Patrick loves the match-play aspect of it and certainly wants Jordan at some time during the course of the matches. But again, we wanted to get Jordan what he wanted here early on and maybe that can happen down the road."
Their opponents on Thursday, Lee and Leishman, are ranked 36th and 37th in the world respectively.
Lee has made the cut only once at a major, while Australian Leishman came close to winning the Open this year, finishing tied for second behind Zach Johnson.
Lee, who was born in Korea but moved to New Zealand as a youngster, did not seem overly worried about playing in his first Presidents Cup with the world's best player on the opposite team.
"It's going to be fun. We played quite a bunch during this year," he said of Spieth. "But it's a team game, not a single game this week. I'm going to do my best to help the team."
The Presidents Cup, which is played for every two years by the United States and a team of international players minus Europeans, continues on Friday and Saturday with foursome and four ball fixtures before 12 singles matches on Sunday.
The United States have been the dominant force in the Cup, winning eight of the 10 previous editions with one tie. Their only defeat came in 1998 at Royal Melbourne.
Thursday's foursomes (BST - US pairing first):
3.05am: B Watson and JB Holmes v A Scott and H Matsuyama
3.18am: M Kuchar and P Reed v L Oosthuizen and B Grace
3.31am: R Fowler and J Walker v A Lahiri and T Jaidee
3.44am: P Mickelson and Z Johnson v J Day and S Bowditch
3.57am: J Spieth and D Johnson v D Lee and M Leishman
Watch the Presidents Cup live on Sky Sports 4HD from 3am on Thursday, or watch without a contract on NOW TV.
