SAN FRANCISCO, October 7, 2009 (AFP) - Japanese phenom Ryo Ishikawa will face a daunting Presidents Cup debut on Thursday when he teams with Geoff Ogilvy in foursomes against America's Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker.

International team captain Greg Norman said he had sounded out Ogilvy about playing with Ishikawa in hopes that Ogilvy's consistency and experience would be of benefit to the 18-year-old Asian, the youngest player in Cup history.

Ogilvy, the 2006 US Open champion and a two-time winner of the World Golf Championships Accenture Match Play, not only agreed, but jumped at the chance to team with the winner of four Japan Tour events since June.

"I asked him, 'Do you have any problem playing with Ryo?' He said, 'I was going to tell you that I wanted to play with him,'" Norman said. "So that was an easy one."

Ogilvy and Ishikawa will be up against America's big guns. Woods has won six times on the US Tour this season, returning in February after major reconstructive knee surgery.

Stricker has won three times on the US Tour this year, including a victory in the Deutsche Bank Championship, one of the elite FedEx Cup playoff events.

"Obviously Tiger and Steve Stricker, that team is great," Ishikawa said. "But golf is a game that you just never know what will happen. I might be somebody who is not bringing a lot of credentials behind me, but I'm going to do my best and play hard til the end and hopefull we can come out victorious."

The match is the fifth of six alternate-shot contests on the opening day of the competition, which pits the United States against a team of players from around the globe - only Europe excluded.

On Friday, the teams will contest six fourball matches. Saturday they play five fourball and five foursomes and the competition concludes Sunday with 12 singles matches.

Phil Mickelson and Anthony Kim will lead the US charge when they open in the first match against Canadian Mike Weir and South African Tim Clark.

The two Californians will be hoping to reprise their success in last year's Ryder Cup, when they were paired in both foursomes and fourballs on the opening day and stormed back from three down in each to earn a halve and a victory.

"That was a pretty easy one," US captain Fred Couples said, adding that the duo had asked to be first out of the blocks in a bid to "set a tone."

"We have a tough match," Mickelson said. "Mike Weir played incredible golf last Presidents Cup in Canada. He's going to be a very tough match, and Tim Clark is one of the best ball strikers on tour.

"But Anthony and I are looking forward to competing in the first group and hopefully leading our team."

Americans Hunter Mahan and Sean O'Hair will take on Australian Adam Scott and South African Ernie Els.

America sends two of this year's major champions - US Open titlist Lucas Glover and British Open winner Stewart Cink against Fiji's Vijay Singh and Aussie Robert Allenby.

And the US duo of Kenny Perry and Zach Johnson play Argentinian Masters champ Angel Cabrera and Colombian Camilo Villegas.

In the last match of the day, Americans Jim Furyk and Justin Leonard take on South African Retief Goosen and South Korea's PGA Championship winner Yang Yong-Eun.

Mickelson predicted the 7,137-yard Harding Park layout would lend itself to some exciting matches over the week.

"It's a great setup and a great golf course for both fourball and foursomes," he said. "It's a very fair test that I think you can see a lot of birdies in both

formats, because it's not overly penalizing if you miss a fairway, but it is challenging ... I think it's going to be an exciting format and an exciting golf course to host this event."

The United States have lost the event just once in seven prior editions, in 1998 at Royal Melbourne.

The sides played to a tie at Fancourt in South Africa in 2003, and the Americans triumphed 19.5-14.5 in 2007 in Montreal.