Lewis will pay back his debt
to get the job done.” Reed and Woods were the only American pair to lose on Friday morning, after which he was benched for the foursomes.
After a second defeat by Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood on Saturday morning, an unhappy Reed was left out again in the afternoon.
Furyk said: “Jordan and Patrick have been great in the past. I felt like, whether that’s a point of contention or not, we could get two great pairings out of them. It was totally my decision and my call. It was a gutsy play but the one I thought was the right thing to do.”
Reed’s backlash, although not on the scale of Phil Mickelson’s infamous assassination of Tom Watson’s captaincy at Gleneagles four years ago, was a stinging shot across the bows of Furyk, but it said as much about the Masters champion as about the captain’s decision-making.
On form alone, Reed’s omission was fair – he played terribly until Sunday. The Spieth-Thomas pairing was also America’s most successful unit with three wins out of four.
The US team room in Versailles had a sign up all week that read: Leave your egos at the door. With an amusing lack of self-awareness, Reed said: “They [Europe] do that better than us.” LEWIS HAMILTON has told Valtteri Bottas he will return the winning favour – once he has secured his fifth world championship.
Hamilton will take part in the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday, the first of five remaining races, with a 50-point lead over Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel after Mercedes used team orders in Russia.
Bottas was instructed to move aside for team-mate Hamilton, who won in Sochi to take the title race out of Vettel’s hands.
He can now afford to finish second at all of the concluding rounds and still be crowned champion. Asked if he would return the compliment to Bottas if he wraps up the title with races to spare, Hamilton said: “I’d have no problems with that. Last season, Valtteri won quite a few races, and he has the possibility of winning more by himself.”
Hamilton will travel to the Far East today to prepare for a race he has won in three of the past four years. Mercedes are now favourites to become only the second team to win five consecutive constructors’ championships. Ferrari won six on the bounce at the turn of the century. HAMILTON KYLE EDMUND fought back to defeat Germany’s Peter Gojowczyk and move into the second round of the China Open in Beijing.
In his first Tour match since his US Open first-round loss to Paolo Lorenzi, the British No1 was broken in his opening service game. But Edmund hit back with three breaks in the second set and two more in the decider to win 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 and book a second-round meeting with Matteo Berrettini or Leonardo Mayer.