Get the ball rolling
Captain Bjorn lines up three Ryder Cuppers for opening matches
SHAH ALAM: Team Europe showed they mean business as captain Thomas Bjorn threw in three Ryder Cuppers in his first two pairings for the opening six fourball fixtures of the EurAsia Cup at the Glenmarie Golf and Country Club today.
The 46-year-old non-playing skipper is counting on English duo Tommy Fleetwood-Paul Casey and the Belgium-England combination Thomas Pieters and Matthew Fitzpatrick to give the title holders a head start against the Asians.
Fleetwood-Casey face arguably the strongest Team Asia pairing of South Korean An Byeonghun and Thai Kiradech Aphibarnrat while PietersFitzpatrick take on Japan’s Yuta Ikeda and Malaysia’s Gavin Kyle Green.
Of the four Europeans, Fleetwood is the only one without a Ryder Cup cap but the 26-year-old was the European Tour No. 1 last year.
Pieters, meanwhile, impressed in his Ryder Cup debut by winning four points from five matches in the US two years ago while Fitzpatrick was also part of the European team who lost 11-17 to the Americans.
The experienced Casey is hoping to repay Bjorn’s faith for selecting him as one of the two captain picks.
He featured in three Ryder Cups and was victorious on two occasions in 2004 and 2006.
Fleetwood has no doubt that his partnership with world No. 14 Casey will click right away.
“Thomas has been speaking to us for a while and I’m delighted to play with Paul.
“We get along really well. I think we’ll make a good partnership,” said Fleetwood.
Casey shared the sentiment saying: “We’ve been paired up before a few years ago in the Seve Trophy (team matchplay between Britain and Ireland vs the rest of Europe) and we had success as a team.
“I would play with any of the guys that I have the possibility of partnering.
“They are all amazing. And playing with Tommy, I’m the lucky one ... I think this is amazing, I can’t wait.”
The other four Team Europe pairings are Alex Noren-Paul Dunne, Henrik Stenson-Alexander Levy, Bernd Wiesberger-Rafa Cabrera-Bello and Ross Fisher-Tyrrell Hatton.
Bjorn said he made up his mind on all the combinations after considering thoroughly from all aspects and is confident they are ready to deliver.
“You look at the stature of a player and you look at form and stats.
“You’ve got to take all of that in, because you can’t just go on the stats if people don’t particularly gel well together, but you can’t also just go on friendship if it doesn’t make sense on the golf course.
“So I looked through all the different aspects. I think we’re in a good place with the pairings we have,” said Bjorn.
The Europeans will be looking to emulate their previous strong opening-day performances. They led the Asians 5-0 in 2014 and 4-1 in 2016.
The EurAsia Cup is based on a format similar to the Ryder Cup, featuring 24 matches (six fourballs, six foursomes and 12 singles).
The winning team will pocket US$3.6mil (RM13.36mil) and the runners-up US$1.2mil (RM4.79mil).