The sedate environs of Royal Melbourne were rocked to the rafters yesterday as the International side were roared to a 7-3 first day lead against the Americans in the third edition of the President's Cup.

The International team have won the individual series before, but never have they actually led overall, and after the first day of both the previous matches were down by 7 1/2 - 2 1/2.

F (40C), they were, if not cooler then certainly calmer, and now have an excellent chance of winning the trophy for the first time.

Peter Thomson is an extraordinary captain who has already admitted that he would wish to have had last week's winner of the Australian Open, Greg Chalmers, in his team. If that is so, it could only be at the expense of either of the New Zealanders, Frank Nobilo or Greg Turner, the two men he actually did pick.

So when he nominated the Kiwis as his The opening partnership of Frank Nobilo and Greg Turner shocked the Player of the Year on the US Tour, Mark O'Meara, and the money list leader, David Duval.

But Nobilo had to hole a 40-foot biridie putt on the last to claim a one-hole win.

Another unconsidered couple, Craig Parry and Shigeki Maruyama, were always ahead of Lee Janzen and Scott Hoch, while Greg Norman and Steve Elkington knew that the vast crowds would allow them no option but to beat Jim Furyk and John Huston.

The only US win came from Tiger Woods and Fred Couples, who beat an oddly out-of-sorts Ernie Els and Vijay Singh 5 and 4.

Thomson turned to an all-Japanese pairing as an afternoon variation for the fourball matches, with Maryama partnering Joe Ozaki. Maruyama birdied four, five and six to put his side three up against Mark Calcavecchia and John Huston. In fact the only one they lost was the 14th, when five up.

The only partnership to stay the same in the afternoon, on either side, was that of Norman and Elkington, who beat O'Meara and Furyk in the second session.