Could Trump make America great again?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just had the President fly over in Air Force One so I\u2019ve got a feeling things are going to turn here,\u201d US captain Keegan Bradley said. \u201cIt\u2019s not exactly what we wanted… but I\u2019ve got a lot of faith in our boys.\u201d<\/p>\n
World No 2 Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood won four of the first six holes to cruise past Americans Collin Morikawa and Harris English 5&4. The \u201cFleetwood Mc\u201d Cup pairing improved to 3-0.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been amazing,\u201d McIlroy said.<\/p>\n
McIlroy, who won the Masters in April to complete a career Grand Slam, won four holes on birdie putts from eight feet or less and blasted from the rough to inches from the sixth hole to set up a Fleetwood birdie.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne step at a time,\u201d Fleetwood said. \u201cWe\u2019ll go all together and see where we get.\u201d<\/p>\n
Europe\u2019s Matt Fitzpatrick and Ludvig Aberg also won four of the first six holes and never trailed in shocking top-ranked Scottie Scheffler and third-ranked Russell Henley 5&3.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hit a lot of nice shots and made it hard for them,\u201d Aberg said.<\/p>\n
Taking down the two highest-ranked US players was big for Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cRuss and I did some good things. We just didn\u2019t hole enough putts early,\u201d Scheffler said. \u201cWe had some chances. The putts just didn\u2019t fall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s Jon Rahm and England\u2019s Tyrrell Hatton outfought Bryson DeChambeau and Justin Thomas 4&3, the Americans winning only the first hole as the European duo improved to 5-0 in Cup foursomes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were aware it was going to be a tough day,\u201d Rahm said. \u201cWe battled. We stayed in it. We started hitting putts and found our rhythm and were able to get it done again.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe dug in,\u201d Hatton said. \u201cThe atmosphere was pretty intense but good fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Americans Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay never trailed in beating Europe\u2019s Robert MacIntyre and Viktor Hovland 2-up, taking the last two holes after a Europe rally.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a tough match,\u201d Cantlay said. \u201cNice to get the point on the board and the fans going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trophy holders Europe seek the first road triumph by either side since their 2012 \u201cMiracle at Medinah\u201d while the Americans try to win back the Cup after losing two years ago in Rome.<\/p>\n
Enhanced security was in place as Trump was set to attend afternoon four-ball (best ball) matches.<\/p>\n
When the main gates opened under pitch black skies at 5am (9am GMT), hundreds of fans stampeded along a floodlight-illuminated path racing to the grandstand for a coveted spot at the opening spectacle.<\/p>\n
The high-pressure crucible at the first tee featured 5000 fans watching from the largest grandstand in Ryder Cup history.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn electric atmosphere like all first tees,\u201d Donald said. \u201cIt\u2019s intense and pure energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The format features four morning foursomes matches and four afternoon four-ball matches on Friday and Saturday with 12 concluding Sunday singles matches.<\/p>\n
The Americans need 14.5 points to win the Cup. Europe, winners in 10 of the past 14 meetings, need only 14 of 28 points to retain the trophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Could Trump make America great again? \u201cWe just had the President fly over in Air Force One so…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[39725,38596,28824,806,1975,38597,7022,11231,15441,10542,34088,39726,2178,2245,2024,39724,7240,13085,111,139,69,10521,2572,28142,39727,35917,27950,39728,213,9939,12825,30943,2179,9938,3040,2173],"class_list":["post-44960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-39725","tag-45th","tag-arrived","tag-as","tag-at","tag-bethpage","tag-black","tag-boost","tag-crowd","tag-cup","tag-delivered","tag-domination","tag-donald","tag-early","tag-europe","tag-grabs","tag-lead","tag-matches","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-opening","tag-president","tag-quiet","tag-raucous","tag-ryder","tag-seeks","tag-seize","tag-sports","tag-states","tag-stunning","tag-todays","tag-trump","tag-united","tag-us","tag-york"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}