Angus Morgan at Royal Melbourne, Sportal
Dustin Johnson and Tiger Woods
The Americans have a firm stranglehold on the 2011 Presidents Cup after dominating the Internationals in Saturday morning's foursomes at Royal Melbourne.
The titleholders won four of the five matches to open up a five-point lead, 11-6.
They need only to claim six and-a-half points from Saturday's five four-ball matches and Sunday's 12 singles matches to achieve revenge for their one and only loss to the Internationals at this same venue in 1998.
The only Internationals to strike a blow were Ernie Els and Ryo Ishikawa who secured their first point for the week with a tense one-up win over Bill Haas and Matt Kuchar.
Internationals captain Greg Norman has elected to rest Ishikawa from the afternoon's four-ball along with Robert Allenby.
"My message to the guys this afternoon, depending on the end result, if it just stays the way it is, they have to go out there and just play loose, play free," said Norman.
"They have got to make a move this afternoon (because) tomorrow in the singles it will be a big move if you're down too many points."
Conditions at Royal Melbourne are the polar opposite of Friday's when hot northerlies transformed the course from formidable to frightening.
Bands of rain swept across the layout from the west at regular intervals on Saturday morning and the Americans, in particular, appreciated the softer going.
Webb Simpson and Bubba Watson, Hunter Mahan and David Toms, Jim Mickelson and Jim Furyk all delivered the goods for the Americans along with Tiger Woods, who had been pointless in the event to this stage, and Dustin Johnson.
Simpson and Watson maintained their perfect record in this year's President's Cup with a three-and-two victory over Allenby and Geoff Ogilvy.
The competition debutants have provided the U.S. with three precious points and found a niche for themselves as lead-off specialists.
"Both of us like to get going early, we don't like to wait around," said Simpson.
"It's nice to try to put the first point on for our team."
Watson credited the pair's shared faith for their success.
"Me and him being good friends and being Christians and believing in what we believe, we're just having good fun out here," said Watson.
"We know it's a blessing to be here."
One-down at the fourth, Toms and Mahan recovered strongly to thump South African pair Retief Goosen and Charl Schwartzel five-and-four.
The momentum in the match swung when Toms holed his approach from 50 metres for eagle at the short par-four sixth.
Woods and Johnson prevailed three-and-two over Adam Scott and K.J. Choi, while Mickelson and Furyk went birdie, eagle, birdie at 11, 12 and 13 to go from one-down to one-up against Aaron Baddeley and Jason Day.
The veteran Americans cruised to the line, two-and-one.