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By Melanie Hauser
PGATOUR.com Contributor

MONTREAL, Canada -- Twelve matches left.

Three wins to retain The Presidents Cup. Three wins and one halve to win it outright.

You can't have any serious questions. Can you?

International Captain Gary Player expects his team to go down swinging in the Sunday Singles. (Condon/PGA TOUR/WireImage)

This isn't Brookline and there's no Captain Comeback waving his finger around and talking about fate. There's no equivalent of a speech from the Alamo tucked in Gary Player's hip pocket. And the underdogs are trailing by seven points. Not four.

And while the mathematical possibility still exists, the probability is, well . . . let's just leave it at miracle and get on with it.

The Americans have two dozen hands on this Presidents Cup and are an afternoon away from winning their first Cup -- combined Presidents and Ryder -- outside the United States since 1993. And Captain Jack Nicklaus' first win in Canada, period.

That they'll have to do it at Royal Montreal Golf Club, where some 30,000 rather vocal and mostly Canadian fans will crowd onto Ile Bizard to see their passion -- countryman Mike Weir -- take on Tiger Woods in singles? They're used to tough crowds.

But honestly, it will never feel as hostile to the United States as other opponents. This is, after all, just a border away from the States and host to a PGA TOUR event.

"It's a drive down the road to find tens of thousands of Americans,'' said Australian Stuart Appleby. "It's not like South Africa; it's not like Australia. This is just a driver's license and off you go.''

Well, a passport, too, come Monday. But you get the idea.

Had things gone differently Saturday afternoon, we wouldn't be talking done deal. Had Woody Austin and Phil Mickelson not battled back to halve their Four-Ball match, had Jim Furyk and Stewart Cink not come from 2 down after 12 -- with Cink birdieing three of the last five holes -- to win theirs 2 up, had the Internationals run the Four-Ball table the way they did Friday, we'd be wondering. About a zillion things.

Instead, the Americans did something they never do -- they ran the table in Foursomes Saturday and ran their lead to 12-5 going into the afternoon. Then they split -- after being way down early -- in Four-Balls.

Americans 14.5, Internationals 7.5. And, need we remind you that the U.S. owns singles?

Oh, we didn't say this was going to be easy. Or that the International team couldn't stage a comeback. It won't be and they can. Count on it.

Once the frost is off the ground and the matches are off the first tee, this one should be fun. You've got two bulldogs in the first match of the day: Scott Verplank and Rory Sabbatini. Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson, not exactly the best of buddies, go off in the third match of the day.

And the fourth? Weir vs. Woods.

"It's going to be loud,'' Weir said. Hopefully I can give them a lot to cheer about. I've been able to do it so far through three days, but tomorrow, obviously anybody who plays Tiger has got their hands full. But I'm playing well and I feel like if I can keep that up, it's going to be a great match.''

But for the crowd to be a factor in anything other than Weir vs. Woods, the Internationals will have to jump on the Americans harder than the Americans jumped on the Europeans in Brookline. But coming back from four points down at a Ryder Cup is one thing. That was history. So to talk seven?

This one feels like Tiger at the 1997 Masters. Or Tiger at the 2000 U.S. Open. Up way more than anyone imagined and no one about to catch him.

Nicklaus doesn't have to a say a word. His team won't underestimate any match. The players are too good, the game too capricious, the puzzle of 12 pieces too complex to overlook anyone.

"It's different than a stroke-play event because if (the leader) struggles and comes back, the rest of the field is there ready,'' Mickelson said. "Here, if one of the guys falls back, that's only one point and we have, you know, quite a few to spare. But we don't want to take it for granted.''

Yet when you get down to it, winning 25 percent of Sunday's matches should be a no-brainer for this American team. After all, it has won 70 percent of the first 22.

So what does a captain do? What can Player say, short of falling back on the "Animal House" line when John Belushi rallies the Deltas with "Over? It's not over. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?" And that won't be happening.

Well, don't expect him to bring up what happened to Oklahoma or Texas Saturday afternoon. Or Michigan two weeks in a row. International players do soccer, not college football.

Nor will he go through the litany of how many times he came back in his career and what he won.

"They know what they have to do,'' Player said. "And I've always said it this to my team: Play well. It doesn't matter who you play. There's no such thing as well I hope I can play against this guy tomorrow, because they are all good. I've always said to them, you expect every match to be tough.

"There ain't no such thing as an easy match. Go out there, if you play well, you win."

Oh, Player's boys will go down swinging. They'll take matches to the 18th and they'll win some Sunday. Just not the 10 matches they need to take the Cup.

This one's staying in those 24 hands already holding it.