Alliss Blog: Fantastic golf on both sides all day Friday

In the Day One edition of his PGA Cup blog, GBI Captain Gary Alliss talks about how impressed he was with the quality of play in both the foursomes and four-ball matches. His only regret is not having more time to take everything in.

By Gary Alliss, Great Britain and Ireland Team Captain

GREENSBORO, Ga. -- After 13 months of anticipation, it was very exciting to get the PGA Cup started this morning. Once we got there -- the excitement of the first tee, photographs and all the rest of it -- the guys couldn't wait to get going and neither could I.

The start to the day was great. There was a little bit of a drizzle, but the weather was kind to us. It was a little coolish and a little breezy, not that it was a factor, but it suited us, I think, and away we went and there we were.

To come out 2-2 in the morning was special, because we weren't looking like favorites in a few of those matches. That was good. Then this afternoon, I brought in the two guys who hadn't played in the morning -- Andrew Barnett and George Ryall. They just took care of business and we were able to grab a point in each of their respective matches.

There was some fantastic golf on both sides all day. Some of the hitting that I saw from our guys and from the U.S. team was just fantastic, you couldn't single anybody out because the quality was amazing.

I think the real key to the first day for us was the match Craig Goodfellow and Mike Nesbit played this afternoon. They were 2-down to the Americans (Don Yrene and Ryan Benzel) with two holes to play and walked off with a halve.

Mike and Craig got themselves in a little hole with a bad shot and a missed putt and suddenly they were 2-down with two to play. You're thinking, "Anything can happen here. They're very powerful." Craig is a phenomenally powerful player.

But then again, fortunes favored them. Craig took on a tight drive to get it as far down the 18th fairway as possible. That's a very difficult closing hole with the water along the left side and really two long shots to get to the green on the par 4.

Craig was about two yards away from the water hazard and Mike couldn't get at the green from there, yet they managed to get up and down for par and fortunately for us, the American team were in the bunker and didn't manage to get it up and down on 18, so that was the halve.

Anything can happen. You always have to remember that. George Ryall's chip on the last -- beautiful. His partner this afternoon was Jon Bevan, who is another very strong player, but again 18 requires two really big hits. Jon did well to get that second shot up pin high in the fluffy Bermuda and George got that chip down to a concession. It was fantastic. Lee Rinker's shot to the last in that match was awesomely good, but Chris Starkjohann's putt just slipped past and there we are a point ahead.

After the first day, I've learned that the timing is very difficult. You just haven't got a whole lot of time. It's a little bit like right now -- we've got to cut this short because our tournament director is screaming at me on the radio telling me, "You've got 15 minutes to put in tomorrow's pairings!"

I'm struggling to get my head around that a bit, but I had better get to that!