Marc SchlabachESPN Senior Writer4 minute read
GUIDONIA MONTECELIO, Italy — If there was one silver lining for Team USA after Friday’s opening session of the 44th Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf Club, it was that most fans golf at home probably slept during this miserable defeat against the European team.
The Europeans swept four four-way matches (alternate shots) to go 4-0 in the Friday morning session for the first time in Ryder Cup history. It was a complete domination of the European team, which is trying to regain the trophy after losing 19-9 at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin in 2021. The United States only managed to retain the advances in any of the morning’s matches.
This is only the fourth time that the European team has remained undefeated during a session in the general classification. This is the first time since 2006 that the European team has led after the first session. He won the Ryder Cup 18½ – 9 ½ at the K Club in Straffan, Ireland.
“We got off to a good start this morning,” said Irishman Shane Lowry. “We’ve got to keep our foot on the ground. Look, we’re very happy with our start today and there’s obviously a lot of golf to play from here. We talked about getting off to a fast start and we got it do.”
The American team, which was hoping to end a 30-year drought in Ryder Cups played outside the United States, has a lot of work to do with 24 matches remaining. The American team needs 14 points to retain the trophy; the Europeans need 14 ½ to reconquer it.
Spaniard Jon Rahm and Englishman Tyrrell Hatton scored the first point on the European scoreboard with a 4&3 victory over world No. 1 golfers Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns.
Rahm and Hatton took control of the match on the third hole and never gave it back. Rahm made a 12-foot birdie putt on the par-4 third hole to go up 1. He made another 4-foot birdie putt on the par-4 fifth. Then, at the par-3 seventh, the tee shot of Rahm hit the pin and his ball stopped 2 feet from the hole.
The American duo had a chance to get one back on the 10th, but Rahm stepped in from the green to save par and cut the hole in half. The Europeans birdied the 11th and eagled the 12th, and the match was all but over.
Scheffler and Burns, who are close friends, fell to 0-3-1 when playing together in international competition. They went 0-2-1 as a tandem in the Presidents Cup in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2022.
Open Championship winners Brian Harman and Max Homa were no better against the Scandinavian team of Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Aberg, losing 4&3 in the second match.
Hovland, the reigning Norwegian FedEx Cup champion, set the tone from the first hole. After Aberg pushed his second shot about 35 feet to the right of the pin, Hovland stepped in from the green and made a 9-foot birdie to win the hole. On the next hole, Hovland holed a 9-foot birdie putt to go up 2.
Harman and Homa won the next two holes to tie the match, but the Europeans did not go down without a fight. Hovland’s shot at number 3 bounced off the pin; Aberg’s chip on number 4 came out of the hole. It was that kind of match for the Americans. Aberg, a Ryder Cup rookie and former Texas Tech star, made birdie putts of 12 feet on No. 6 and 14 feet on No. 9 to go up 3.
“Obviously they played really well,” Homa said. “We didn’t have a lot of opportunities, and when we did, unfortunately we didn’t take advantage of them. I mean, they played really well.”
In the third match, American Ryder Cup veteran Rickie Fowler missed an 8-foot putt that would have won the hole. That’s how the rest of the round played out for Fowler and two-time major winner Collin Morikawa in a 2&1 loss to Lowry and Austrian Sepp Straka.
The European pair were up 2 points after four holes, then won three straight holes, Nos. 7 through 9, to go 4 ahead. Fowler and Morikawa fought back to win a few late holes, but it wasn’t enough.
Even the normally reliable duo of Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele couldn’t do much on Friday in a 2&1 defeat to Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland and Tommy Fleetwood of England. The American tandem was down 1 at the turn and 2 after 11 holes. The Americans pulled within 1 on Schauffele’s 12-foot birdie putt at No. 14. On the next hole, Schauffele missed a 4-footer for par. The Europeans won the holeshot and moved up 2 points in the match.
Play will resume with four four-ball (best ball) matches on Friday. Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas face Hovland and Hatton at 6:25 a.m. ET; Scheffler and Brooks Koepka will face Rahm and Nicolai Hojgaard at 6:40 a.m. ET; Homa and US Open winner Wyndham Clark take on Robert MacIntyre and Justin Rose at 6:55 a.m. ET; and Morikawa and Schauffele face McIlroy and Matt Fitzpatrick at 7:10 a.m. ET.