U.S. take early edge in morning foursomes at Ryder Cup

Rory McIlroy was the last to arrive at the opening tee this morning for his Ryder Cup match, prompting the pro-USA crowd in the grandstand to get the first “Snory Rory” chant going.

“Anything can happen in the Ryder Cup”.

In contrast to the wild splash of colours in the stands, Arnold Palmer’s white U.S. Ryder Cup captain’s golf bag from the 1975 matches at Laurel Valley Golf Club in Ligonier, Pennsylvania stood in the corner of the first tee box.

“Looking back, we probably should have given him it”, Spieth said later.

And it’s only Day 1, people. 2 and 3 while playing off of Reed, who is wearing short sleeves, to take a 2-up lead on Henrik Stenson and Justin Rose.

Spieth and Reed retaliated at the par-four 12th where they refused to concede a putt of just over two feet and, as Garcia lined it up, a fan yelled out: “It’s an easy putt Sergio”.

Mickelson also had to apologize Thursday after offering up unprompted a stinging criticism of Sutton by saying the 2004 captain set up Woods and Mickelson to fail by giving them just two days’ notice that the two would be playing together. They’ll team up again in afternoon four-balls. That was the centerpiece of a four-hole stretch that carried he and Jordan Spieth to a 2-and-1 victory in the final match of another raucous and at times rude afternoon at Hazeltine. “You know, from this morning, from the results after the foursomes this morning, to this afternoon, it was certainly match play golf at its utmost”. The turning point – odd as it might sound in the aftermath – might have been the Americans making a mess of the sixth hole.

With Rose then doing the same in match three and losing to an American birdie, a comfortable three-hole lead had been reduced to one, but rock-solid pars on the 17th and 18th sealed a hard-fought success. The roller coaster didn’t end there, though.

Like Stenson-Rose, the McIlroy-Pieters duo got beat handily as the Americans rolled out a 4-0 sweep of the morning foursome. “This guy loosened me up”, Mickelson said, nodding toward Fowler, who won a Ryder Cup match for the first time.

All four of the US teams are pairs that won at least one match on Friday.

“That’s an example of starting with the captain, that put us in a position to fail and we failed monumentally, absolutely”, Mickelson continued.

Further up the scoreboard, Rory McIlroy and Thomas Pieters have taken a commanding lead in their best-ball battle with Americans Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson. Europe made double bogey on the seventh hole, and the Americans birdied the par-3 eighth to go 5 up, and the rout was on. They lost two matches in one day.

Kismet? The last US sweep of a session to open a Ryder Cup in morning foursomes came in 1975 at Laurel Valley Golf Club in Ligonier, Pa., when Arnold Palmer was captain.

“I bowed to them and said, “You’re welcome for the show”, the Northern Irishman told reporters”. “We are fired up”. “We want this one”.

PGA Championship victor Jimmy Walker and two-time major victor Zach Johnson lost the second hole to Spain’s Sergio Gercia and Germany’s Martin Kaymer with a par and could not square the match until the 12th hole, but they won that and the next four in a 4 and 2 romp. The matches were played before massive crowds that were vocal in their support of the American team.

“Obviously happy to be 5-3”, said Love. “We didn’t know it would THAT well, but we knew were going to have a good morning”.

“We don’t all wear hats”. It was a good day and I’m proud of our guys.

“Someone just said a few derogatory things I thought were over the line. They are nearly like waiting for Christmas; they want to go and play”.

Team Europe fans didn’t disappoint, either.