As the Europeans continued to shine at Bethpage Black, they accomplished a Ryder Cup first in Saturday morning foursomes.<\/p>\n
In winning the session, 3-1, it marked the first time in the five-session, 28-point era (est. 1979) that Europe has won each of the first three sessions on U.S. soil. Luke Donald\u2019s side is also the first road team since the 1961 U.S. squad to win each of the first three frames. Europe has won the first three sessions twice at home, in 2006 and 2023; it won both times, including by nine points at the K Club, where it didn\u2019t drop any of the five sessions.<\/p>\n
Now, with an 8.5-3.5 advantage, tying the largest by an away team in this modern era, Europe has Keegan Bradley and the Americans on the ropes.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how the Europeans did it Saturday morning at Bethpage:<\/p>\n
Bryson DeChambeau\/Cameron Young (U.S.) def. Matt Fitzpatrick\/Ludvig Aberg, 4 and 2<\/p>\n
Bradley needed to get DeChambeau going, so he paired him with Young, the star for the U.S. on Friday afternoon, and it worked. The Americans took their first lead after Young chipped in for birdie from 18 feet at the par-3 third, and while Europe tied things back up with birdie at the par-5 fourth, the U.S. went 1 up again with par at the par-4 seventh.<\/p>\n
The par-3 eighth was key in this one, as Young stuffed his tee ball 200 yards to inside 3 feet and Fitzpatrick followed with a shot to 6 feet. However, Aberg missed the birdie putt and DeChambeau made his, and the Americans doubled their lead. The U.S. went 3 up with par on No. 10, though Nos. 9 and 12 were exciting halves, with each of the four players getting a crucial mid-range roll to drop on those holes.<\/p>\n
Aberg had a chance to get a hole back, at the par-4 15th, but his downhill trickler from 15 feet lipped out. The Americans closed the match out at the par-4 16th, where Young holed a 12-footer for birdie.<\/p>\n
Young is the first U.S. player to two points this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor our country, it was just pedal to the metal,\u201d DeChambeau said. \u201cCam played unbelievable today. We struck it well, we executed when we needed to and we just put the pressure on them all day. They struggled to get momentum, and when we had our opportunities, we took advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rory McIlroy\/Tommy Fleetwood (Europe) def. Harris English\/Collin Morikawa, 3 and 2<\/p>\n
This U.S. duo showed Friday morning why they were considered Bradley\u2019s worst possible foursomes pairing (of 132 possible partnerships), and yet the U.S. captain stuck to his plan and sent them back out. This one went about how you\u2019d expect, too.<\/p>\n
Though the Americans went 1 up after one hole, Europe birdied three of the next four holes to go 2 up. At the par-4 second, Fleetwood canned a 30-footer from the fringe while McIlroy holed one from long distance, 23 feet, at the par-4 fifth.<\/p>\n
Europe went 4 up after wins with par at Nos. 7 and 8, and even as the Americans tried to battle back with birdies at Nos. 11 and 12, Europe punched back, Fleetwood hitting the stick with his approach at No. 11 and McIlroy throwing a dart to 3 feet at No. 12. <\/p>\n
Finally, though, the U.S. gained some momentum back, winning the par-3 14th with par as Fleetwood missed a 5-footer and taking the par-4 15th on an 18-foot birdie make by English after Morikawa found the green with 5-wood from the rough.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe played phenomenally well for 12 of the holes, and for the next few holes it was like we were always kind of one golf shot away from the match being over. I made a hash of a couple of things,\u201d Fleetwood said. \u201cYeah, I just think where we put ourselves, obviously it made it very difficult for them, they played great toward the end there. Having that buffer there and that lead helped massively, and then Rory hitting that shot on the last, so that was good.\u201d<\/p>\n
McIlroy backed off his approach at the par-4 16th to chirp back at some hecklers, and then he stepped up and hacked one out of the rough to 3 feet, inside the Americans\u2019 ball 9 feet away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t mind them having a go at us,\u201d McIlroy said of the U.S. fans. \u201cLike that\u2019s to be expected. I mean, that\u2019s what an away Ryder Cup is. Whenever they are still doing it while you are over the ball and trying to hit your shot, that\u2019s the tough thing. You know, look, in between shots, say whatever you want to me. That\u2019s totally fine. But give us the respect to let us hit shots, and give us the same chance that the Americans have, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morikawa would miss the putt and Fleetwood would roll in the short birdie to end the match and bring he and McIlroy to 4-0 together in foursomes for their careers. This week, Fleetwood is now 3-0 and McIlroy 2-0-1.<\/p>\n
Jon Rahm\/Tyrrell Hatton (Europe) def. Xander Schauffele\/Patrick Cantlay, 3 and 2<\/p>\n
The Americans\u2019 most experienced foursomes duo, the only winners for the U.S. on Friday morning, got off to a nightmare start. Hatton hit a beautiful pitch from 67 yards to 14 inches at No. 1, and the Europeans won the second hole as well with Schauffele missing a 6-footer for par following a poor lag putt by Cantlay.<\/p>\n
While the U.S. pair clawed back to tie the match with wins at Nos. 5 and 7 with pars, Rahm snatched back the momentum with a seemingly impossible chip-in at the par-3 eighth. Rahm was standing inside a greenside bunker with the ball in the rough way above his feet, and he took a baseball swing and hooped it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only benefit to the whole situation is that they were off the green, as well,\u201d Rahm said. \u201cSo I could afford to be aggressive and hopefully leave him a decent putt. I was honestly just trying to putt it on the green, right. Hopefully hit it somewhere online, somewhere with the right distance, and it came out absolutely perfect. It\u2019s a bit of luck involved but at least the ball was lying well and got really decent contact on it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The back nine featured a ton of tied holes with par, though Rahm\u2019s approach from the rough to 5 feet at the par-4 12th set up a Hatton birdie to push Europe\u2019s lead to 2 up. Rahm closed out the match by hitting his approach at the par-4 16th 143 yards to 3 feet; Hatton polished off the putt. According to NBC\u2019s Smylie Kaufman, Rahm hit just two putts all morning.<\/p>\n
Like McIlroy and Fleetwood, Rahm and Hatton move to 4-0 as a foursomes pair. And like Fleetwood, Rahm is 3-0 for the week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tried to get something going,\u201d Schauffele said. \u201cCouldn\u2019t adjust quick enough, and they played better and beat us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Cantlay: \u201cYeah, I fought hard. Just wasn\u2019t enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robert MacIntyre\/Viktor Hovland (Europe) def. Russell Henley\/Scottie Scheffler, 1 up<\/p>\n
After going 0-2 on Friday, Scheffler teamed back up with Henley in the anchor match against MacIntyre and Hovland, who went a combined 0-2 on Friday. And while Scheffler\u2019s putter woke up (he was the Americans\u2019 best on greens statistically Saturday morning), the Europeans still grabbed ahold of this match early as MacIntyre drained a 20-footer for birdie to win the par-4 second.<\/p>\n
The U.S. duo went 2 down after Henley couldn\u2019t make an 18-footer for par after he left Scheffler in a greenside bunker at the par-4 fifth. The Euros made a mess of the next hole to give it right back, though Hovland chipped in at the par-3 eighth to return their advantage to 2 up.<\/p>\n
Scheffler converted a 15-foot birdie putt at No. 11 and Henley did the same from 8 feet at No. 13 to tie the match back up, but MacIntyre responded at the par-3 14th by stuffing his tee shot to 5 feet to set up a winning Hovland birdie. MacIntyre made a 10-footer for par to tie No. 15, and after he blew his lag at No. 17 well past the hole while the American crowd started counting the number of seconds it was taking him to pull the trigger, Hovland sank the 12-foot comebacker, then celebrated with a massive fist pump, to clinch at least the half-point.<\/p>\n
With Europe 1 up with one to play, Scheffler had a chance to put the pressure on. But the world No. 1 missed the green from just 116 yards. Henley hit a nice shot from the whispy stuff around the greenside bunkering, but MacIntyre just needed to lag his 20-footer close to earn the concession, which he did to seal he and Hovland\u2019s first point of the week.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like it was a pretty good day, but they just kind of out-putted us,\u201d Henley said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Europeans continued to shine at Bethpage Black, they accomplished a Ryder Cup first in Saturday morning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[566],"tags":[64,63,755,85],"class_list":["post-174640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}