So much for "aggressive" play: Hyped Mickelson-Kim pairing have one birdie thru 13

LOUISVILLE, KY – You can’t listen to an American player talk about Valhalla this week without mentioning that it caters to “aggressive” play. Apparently they’ve taken a page from the Tim Duncan-style interview.

“If you hit the fairway, you can be aggressive,” said Stewart Cink yesterday.

“You have to shoot at some pins and try and make some birdies and be aggressive,” said his partner this morning Chad Campbell. They are two down with Chad Campbell in their match against Justin Rose and Ian Poulter.

Mickelson of course has never seen a venue he couldn’t be aggressive on.

“It wasn’t going to be a course where you won a lot of holes with par,” said Mickelson, who added, “We have a very aggressive team.”

That’s backfired. You can set the course up all you want to cater to birdies, but you still have to hit the shots. The hyped pairing of Anthony Kim and Phil Mickelson haven’t done that. They just cut their deficit down to two with five holes left. They have one birdie thus far and that was for a halve on the par-4 4th hole.

Kim made a big fist pump after their win (with a par) on the 13th hole, but they’ll need an unlikely Euro collapse if they’re going to come out of this match with a half point.

Afternoon matchups are expected to be announced within the hour.

UPDATE: A second par in a row - thanks to a beautiful scramble shot by Mickelson from behind the green - just cut their deficit to one shot with four to go.