With Tiger Woods electing to focus on being captain on Saturday at the Presidents Cup, the Americans still managed to narrow the score to 10-8 at Royal Melbourne.
The Americans did their damage in afternoon Foursomes, when they went undefeated, winning two matches and tying the other two.
The score would have been half a point closer had Justin Thomas and Rickie Fowler not allowed a five up lead to evaporate over the final eight holes of their afternoon Foursomes match before tying the International pairing of Abraham Ancer and Marc Leishman.
Gary Woodland and Dustin Johnson defeated Adam Scott and Louis Osthuizen 2&1 and Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele beat Sunjae Im and Cameron Smith by an identical score.
Tony Finau and Matt Kuchar tied Joaquin Niemann and Byeong Hun An in the final Foursomes match of the day.
The Internationals had a four-point lead going into Foursomes after they won twice and tied another match in Four-ball on Saturday morning to go up 9-5.
Abraham Ancer and Sungjae Im defeated Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele 3&2 and C.T. Pan and Hideki Matsuyama beat Webb Simpson and Patrick Reed 5&3. Byeong Hun An and Adam Scott tied Tony Finau and Matt Kuchar.
The only American victory of the session went to Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas, who defeated Haotong Li and Marc Leishman 3&2.
Adam Hadwin didn’t play on Saturday.
