FARMINGDALE, N.Y. \u2014 No. 1 in the world is 0-2 at this Ryder Cup, and Scottie Scheffler had the worst first day by a top-ranked player since Tiger Woods.<\/p>\n
Scheffler lost again in foursomes<\/a> \u2014 and as always in that format at the Ryder Cup, lost badly \u2014 in the morning with Russell Henley, then went back out with U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun for a loss in fourballs<\/a> in the afternoon.<\/p>\n By himself, Scheffler is winning more often than anyone in golf. But his teams were behind nearly throughout both his matches Friday, and with Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau, their two biggest stars, both going 0-2, the Americans trailed Europe, 5 1\/2 to 2 1\/2, overall.<\/p>\n Scheffler finally seemed to find his game late in the afternoon match, with three birdies in the final four holes of the match. But he didn\u2019t have any until the 13th hole as Jon Rahm and Sepp Straka built a comfortable lead, and the European duo went on to a 3-and-2 victory.<\/p>\n \u201cWe gave ourselves plenty of opportunities,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cIt really just came down to me not holing enough putts. We put up a good fight at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n He fell to 0-4-2 in his last six Ryder Cup matches, becoming the first No. 1 player in the world to go 0-2 on the opening day since Woods in 2002. Woods also did that in 1999; Ian Woosnam in 1991 is the only other top-ranked player to do it.<\/p>\n Scheffler and Henley were defeated, 5 and 3, by Europe\u2019s Matt Fitzpatrick and Ludvig \u00c5berg in the morning, Scheffler\u2019s third blowout loss in three career foursome matches in the Ryder Cup.<\/p>\n Two years after being left in tears when \u00c5berg and Viktor Hovland routed Scheffler and Brooks Koepka, 9 and 7, in Rome in the shortest foursomes match in Ryder Cup history, Scheffler watched Fitzpatrick and \u00c5berg make seven birdies in 15 holes.<\/p>\n Scheffler has trailed by at least four holes in all three of his Ryder Cup foursomes matches.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just didn\u2019t hole enough putts early,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cWe had some chances. I think the putts just didn\u2019t fall.\u201d<\/p>\n The afternoon match seemed to swing when one of his didn\u2019t on No. 8.<\/p>\n He and Spaun were 1 down and Scheffler hit his tee shot on the par 3 to about 8 feet. Rahm made his putt from about twice as long and Scheffler missed, turning the U.S. hopes of evening the match into a 2-up lead for Europe.<\/p>\n Rahm and Straka would never let the Americans back into it, making five birdies in the final six holes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe guys just really turned it on on the back nine, but it really came down to us not taking advantage of the holes early in the match that we needed to,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cBut overall it was a good fight at the end, and we\u2019ll come back out tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n Scheffler has won six times this year, four more than anyone else on the PGA Tour, with two major championships. He has played himself back into tournaments after slow starts before, and maybe his performance on the final few holes gives him some momentum going into Saturday.<\/p>\n U.S. captain Keegan Bradley sent Scheffler and Henley out second, after DeChambeau and Justin Thomas. While the leadoff duo was the high-profile match of the morning, the one after might\u2019ve appeared to be the best U.S. team.<\/p>\n Henley is No. 3 in the world ranking, and he and Scheffler went 2-1 together last year in the Presidents Cup in Montreal.<\/p>\n Scheffler pumped his fist after rolling in a birdie putt on No. 2 to quickly tie the match after Fitzpatrick and \u00c5berg had won the opener, but there wouldn\u2019t be much more to celebrate for the Americans. The Europeans ran off three straight birdies to win Nos. 4-6 to build a 3-up lead that ballooned to 5 up, and won it when the U.S. made bogey on No. 15.<\/p>\n \u201cThey played great, gave themselves a lot of chances and just was a little sloppy,\u201d Henley said. \u201cDidn\u2019t make the putts I needed to and didn\u2019t really keep the momentum going with the ball-striking on the back nine, either. Hung in there as best I could, but they played great.\u201d<\/p>\n Scheffler also lost, 4 and 3, with Sam Burns against Jon Rahm and Tyrell Hatton in his other foursomes match in 2023, when he went 0-2-2. He didn\u2019t play in either match in his Ryder Cup debut in 2021, when he went 2-0-1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FARMINGDALE, N.Y. \u2014 No. 1 in the world is 0-2 at this Ryder Cup, and Scottie Scheffler had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-172144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}