Ryder Cup heckler makes incredible putt
“You’ve done pretty much all you can do”.
“We would dearly love to win and love to win in the future, and that’s why we’ve prepared so well”, said U.S. Team Captain Davis Love III.
Last time: Europe built a 10-6 lead going into Sunday singles at Gleneagles and won the singles sessions for a 16 1/2-11 1/2 victory.
On a more sombre note, once both sets of players had emerged in black suits into the spotlight of the evening Minnesota sunshine, a video tribute to late golfing great Arnold Palmer was played and observed impeccably. Therefore, there are four sessions over the first two days: two morning sessions and two afternoon sessions.
Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson inspired a bold fightback by holders Europe in Friday afternoon’s fourball matches before the United States ended a gripping first day at the Ryder Cup with a 5-3 lead.
The Ryder Cup may be the last great professional sporting event where winning, and not prize money, is its own reward.
Rory McIlroy, who ended the first day by making an eagle and bowing to the raucous American crowd, teams with Thomas Pieters in the first match Saturday morning and they rolled to a 4-and-2 victory over Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler.
Love praised two of his pairings for not giving up on the brink of early elimination in the afternoon fourballs as they extended one-sided losses by two holes.
Between them the pair notched nine birdies to crush their American opponents, who appeared to run out of steam towards the end.
Love said Reed was a shoo-in to be in the opening match. I never knew that we would play together in the Ryder Cup. They brought Love back as captain, giving him a chance at redemption from the meltdown at Medinah.
CROWD CONTROL: More than 50,000 fans flocked to Hazeltine on Friday, the vast majority of them wearing stars and stripes and cheering for the Americans. I don’t think, for a second, that Seve Ballesteros would have apologized either. We take a lot of pride in that.
“They had an incredible start and we kept telling each other, “just keep at it, keep putting pressure on and hopefully at some point they’ll slow down a little bit”, said Ryder Cup veteran Garcia.
“We didn’t really put a foot wrong tee-to-green this morning, but we didn’t make any putts”.
While play hasn’t officially started yet at the Ryder Cup (that comes Friday), there have still been plenty of happenings on the Hazeltine course.
“Unfortunately the European team weren’t quite firing on all cylinders this morning and the American team rightly took advantage of that and played some wonderful golf”. Mickelson and Woods lost both their matches, and the Europeans ended up trouncing the American squad. “They got on a roll with the putter and they seemed to make all the putts and we had a couple matches where we just couldn’t get them to go in”.
There is rarely a shortage of drama in the Ryder Cup – and that’s before it gets started. Europe has six rookies on its 12-man roster. Stenson won the British Open with a record score in the majors. He says this a new team that has never played together.
But he’s also well aware that in his previous four Ryder Cup appearances in 2006, 2010, 2012, and 2014, the US team has yet to win.
Stenson joked with the paper that, “Now he can tell the whole world that the European team are the ones that have the most fun”.