“I spoke to Ernie[Els] going down 12,and he was just saying,'get as far as you can. Take it as for as you can'. I'm like,‘hang on,let's not talk about losing this yet. We're going to fight this out’. And yeah,we did.
“That's probably as good as I've felt on a golf course – and I only halved the match. We've all won up here;we've won tournaments,but we don't get chances to play with a teammate very often.”
The International side lead 10-8 after Byeong-Hun An burned the hole on the 18th with a birdie try which would have extended the underdogs’ lead to three points heading into Sunday.
Woods sat out both sessions on Saturday and denied he was injured,stressing he was getting primed for Sunday’s singles matches.
The International team,which has only ever won one Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne way back in 1998,took a stranglehold on the event when they padded their buffer to four points after winning two and splitting another of the four morning fourball matches.
And they narrowly avoided what at one stage looked to be a foursomes wipe out as Woods’ faith in his side was partially vindicated late on the third day.
Woods’ playing partner across the first two days Thomas remains unbeaten in his four matches despite a Saturday afternoon implosion.
He used a little-known rule of matchplay to make Haotong Li retake a shot after he played out of turn during a fourball clash and later reacted angrily to not being conceded a putt by the Chinese star and Leishman.
He combined with Fowler to blast to a five-up lead after just seven holes against Leishman and the also undefeated Ancer in the foursomes,before watching their lead fritter away in front of a boisterous crowd.
“I think speechless,” Thomas said. “It's unacceptable for us to get a half a point. They made a couple long putts there on 15 and 16 to keep it going. We had our chances and flat honest,just didn't execute. I'm just disappointed in myself for burning that,I felt like,for us on 18[with a stray drive].”
The International side will need to bank 5.5 of an available 12 points on the final day to win the Cup for the first time since Woods edged past Greg Norman in a final day duel 21 years ago.
The atmosphere is likely to be at fever pitch after homegrown stars Leishman,Adam Scott and Cameron Smith tried to whip the Saturday galleries into a frenzy as Els’ team closes in on one of the biggest upsets in team golf history.
“It was a big last hour for us,” Scott said. “Certainly feel like it showed our intentions as a team. There's a lot of heart sitting here next to me. We're in the middle of a fight and we're all going to be up for it.”