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 third installment.

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. -- I played better today. I felt like I played pretty good yesterday but I played really good today through 13 holes, and then just didn't help much from there. Sometimes that happens. I was really disappointed on my second shot on No. 17. I had a pitching wedge there and had a lot more room than I thought I did. I'm having a little trouble -- a lot of the guys are -- with these lies in these fairways. They are in really good shape but the grass is weak and the ball sits down. So I've been hitting them fat all week. I was trying to take it right at the flag and I just came out of it and didn't hit it as solid as I needed to, so I lost it a little right and short. Vijay ended up making birdie there to square the match. Any time you give the best player in the world a sand wedge, well, we were lucky to dodge it right there on 18. That was a big, not losing a point, as it turned out.

I am looking at the leaderboards big time. I wasn't sure how everything was going until the rain delay and then I saw that we had three and they had three, and the matches were really close. It was very pivotal that Justin and Scott won theirs and that we didn't lose. We were right there at even and 1 up all day. The close matches, you don't want to lose, so that was big. David and Freddie were down big early and then it looked like they had a chance to win. It gives you some momentum when you see something like that. When we first came back out after the rain delay there were a lot of American cheers on the golf course, a lot of things were happening all at once. There was a lot of yelling and screaming. That was pretty cool.

I am looking forward to my Foursomes match with David Toms Saturday morning. We’re playing Tim Clark and Nick O’Hern. I have learned to enjoy alternate shot. I think we stumbled onto something in the practice round the other day on Wednesday. We went out as a sixsome and just played two alternate shots -- three guys were hitting tee shots and the other three guys are down the fairway hitting their second shots while they are walking up. You can play really fast that way, too. I don't think we've ever practiced alternate shot before this week. I think what's going to happen in the future, we've been talking about it -- is to go out in two sixsomes and play alternate shot in the Ryder Cup weeks and Presidents Cup weeks and have fun with it. Guys are just ribbing each other and just having a great time. It was a blast to do that. It wasn't as tedious and monotonous as a regular practice round and you're not really wanting to play all 18 holes, you're a little tired, takes some of the stress out.