By Mike Weir
Special to PGATOUR.com

Close, but no cigar.

That was the story of my match on Saturday morning as Trevor Immelman and I came so close to putting up a half point for our International Team in our match against Davis Love and Stewart Cink.

We got off to slow start, getting down four after just nine holes. We really put ourselves behind the eight-ball with that beginning, but we rallied well, creeping back in hole by hole.

Sometimes you can just get a good feeling going and Trevor and I did that as we made the turn. We started knocking down flags and dropping putts and I think when that happens the other team starts to press a bit. When you’re down, you don’t really have anything to lose so you can sort of free-wheel it and it started to come together for us.

On the 17th hole, there was a bit of a misunderstanding between Davis and us. After Stewart hit a very nice shot to the green, I said “Nice shot, Stew,” and Davis thought I had said the putt was good, so he picked it up.

The ball was close enough that I was going to give it to them any way, but I didn’t want them to do that before I had putt. If I missed my putt, then they would have won the match if we’d conceded so I think the right thing to do was to mark the ball.

Right from the start, I told both Davis and Stewart, as well as the referee that if the penalty for picking the ball up was loss of hole, then I would concede the putt. I didn’t want to win the hole that way, I just wanted to make sure they didn’t already have their three on the card before I had a chance to putt.

Thankfully, we cleared everything up and they were able to replace the ball. I managed to regroup, amid a few boos from people in the crowd who probably weren’t sure of what was going on, and made the putt. As I was walking to the 18th tee, Jack Nicklaus told me I did the right thing, which was nice of him to do. But there was no ill will -- it was just a miscommunication.

On the 18th, Trevor hit a great drive and I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get him closer to the hole -- I hit my approach to about 20 feet. He made a great putt and the ball caught a lot of lip, but it stayed out and we lost 1-down.

For more from Mike from the Presidents Cup please visit MikeWeir.com.