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September 29, 2011

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Woods, Haas win wildcard spots for US team

TIGER Woods and Bill Haas were both named on a powerful United States team for this year's Presidents Cup while the Australian pair of Robert Allenby and Aaron Baddeley filled the two International places as the rival captains revealed their wildcard selections on Tuesday.

The American team's non-playing captain Fred Couples had already announced he was reserving one of his two spots for Woods while Haas provided a compelling case for his inclusion on the 12-man roster by winning last weekend's season-ending Tour Championship in Atlanta and the US$10 million bonus as FedExCup points champion.

Norman also kept true to his pledge that he wanted two of his countrymen with experience of playing the tricky Royal Melbourne Golf Club layout. He gave the nod to the two Australians ahead of last year's British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa and Fijian former world No. 1 Vijay Singh to bolster a lineup already overflowing with talent.

Australian contingent

The addition of Baddeley and Allenby boosts the Australian contingent on the International squad to five with Jason Day and Adam Scott, the joint runners-up at this year's Masters, and former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy having already earned automatic selection. "Knowing we were playing in the backyard of Australia I wanted to load up the team with as many Aussies as I possibly could," Norman said.

Baddeley, who came up one shot short of joining Haas and Hunter Mahan in the playoff to decide the Tour Championship, did enough to pip John Senden for the last spot while Allenby, a Melbourne native, has a brilliant record at the course he first played when he was 12 years old and has since won two professional titles on.

"The way Aaron and John Senden performed at the Tour Championship, I put them on notice that whoever played the best would get the final nod and Aaron put on a tremendous performance there," Norman said.



 

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