Editor’s note: Fred Funk, one of the game’s most popular players, is competing in his second Presidents Cup this week. The 49-year-old who won THE PLAYERS Championship in March will be writing a diary for PGATOUR.com this week. Here is his second installment.

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. -- We have a neat camaraderie on this team. The first thing, we get into the team room over there, and there’s a ping pong table and not within 30 seconds, Phil and Tiger are playing ping pong. A blood and guts match. Both of them are really good players. Kenny Perry is, too, and DiMarco. We really are a close-knit group, and we’re just really tight with Jack, obviously. We want to play well for each other. We just hate reading that we’re not a team that’s together because we really are. Everybody respects each other. Everybody wants to beat each other, too. But here we want to be a team, and we are a team.

I played with Jimmy today, and we halved our match with Vijay and Mark Hensby. It was a real see-saw battle. You’re just trying to stay calm and stay in the game and look for an opening and take it. I made the first really good putt the team made all day on the par-5 12th and then I made another nice one on No. 14, the par 3. Both of them enabled us to win the hole. That helped and got us back in the match. We weren’t looking too good when we lost the 16th, though, but then Mark hit it in the trees, so that was a wide-open, gimme hole there. That gave us a hole that we needed to get to the 18th. Jimmy hit such a good putt there. It would have been nice to have won a whole point but halving your match is sure better than losing a whole point, too. I think Jimmy said it best to Vijay. We probably both thought we left something out there, so we probably should have halved the match. You always want to win, but that was probably an appropriate outcome for this match.

Fred Funk, right, poses with former Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush. (WireImage)

Jimmy had a problem with his ribs today. I wasn’t worried about him, though, because he’s such a competitor. I’ve been fighting a rib in a different spot for eight or 10 weeks now. This is the first week it hasn’t hurt so I know how bad it is to swing when you have that kind of an injury. He assured me, he says, "I can swing, I just can’t breathe in between." When he gets through the swing, it’s fine, but right after, that’s when it hurts and starts to spasm. He’s fine, though. He needs to get it treated, obviously. Hopefully, he can go tomorrow.

I play with Stewart Cink on Friday in the Four-ball matches. We’re going to play Vijay again, this time with Tim Clark. I’m having such a good time this week. I really, really wanted to make this team. To get back here and play in The Presidents Cup right where I grew up, well, that’s right up there with winning THE PLAYERS Championship at my new home in Ponte Vedra. I really do pinch myself and realize where I’ve come from -- golf coach, club pro -- and to attain some of the things I have out here, it’s pretty cool.