Luke Donald\u2019s side led the United States 5.5-2.5 after a memorable Friday at Bethpage Black where McIlroy was at the centre of the action.<\/p>\n
After his \u2018Fleetwood Mac\u2019 reunion ended in perfect harmony as he and an on-song Tommy Fleetwood thumped Collin Morikawa and Harris English 5&4 in the morning fourballs, he was engulfed in a thrilling fourballs battle where drama was never far away.<\/p>\n
It came down to the last putt where the Irishman was millimetres away from giving his side a 6-2 first-day lead. Instead he and Shane Lowry had to settle for a half against Sam Burns and Patrick Cantlay.<\/p>\n
But there was controversy on the 11th hole as McIlroy appeared to gesture towards someone in the crowd as he walked off the 11th green.<\/p>\n
He and his partner Lowry had just gone two up when he responded to an unknown comment from the crowd.<\/p>\n
That did not take the shine off the day for McIlroy, who was able to reflect on a strong start for Europe, even though his missed putt on the 18th hole stung.<\/p>\n
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\u201cObviously right now, I\u2019m disappointed I didn\u2019t hole out for a full point,\u201d McIlroy said on the 18th green.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s been a great day for Europe. We have come out of the gates really strong like we wanted to.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, we should be really proud of ourselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would have absolutely taken this last night if you had told us we would be 5.5-2.5 up.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously in the moment right now, I\u2019m disappointed I didn\u2019t hole that for a full point but the guys have done so well, and right now, it\u2019s just about recovering and resting up and getting ready for Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier, European Robert MacIntyre had a spat with an American member of the crowd following a comment made about his weight on the 17th tee.<\/p>\n
Much had been made of the Bethpage Black crowd in the build-up to the tournament and how they were expected to make it a hostile \u201cbear pit\u201d.<\/p>\n
But McIlroy and Co helped keep them largely quiet.<\/p>\n
On the crowd\u2019s antics, he added: \u201cIt was what we sort of expected. It was rowdy and lively. They made it difficult for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, but I felt like Shane and I, we handled that really well and dug in. Made some good swings and good putts when we needed to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Captain Luke Donald was not aware of the incident on the 11th, but praised the way his team handled the spectators.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not aware of that,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you know, I was definitely proud of the guys, how they handled the situation, a tough environment out there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke Donald\u2019s side led the United States 5.5-2.5 after a memorable Friday at Bethpage Black where McIlroy was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,10916,112],"class_list":["post-46543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ryder-cup","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}