FLOP OF THE MORNING TO YOU, TIGER

TIGER WOODS and Patrick Reed were benched yesterday afternoon after a morning to forget for America’s latest dream team.

Woods and Reed were the only American pairing to lose in the morning, continuing Tiger’s miserable opening-day record in the Ryder Cup. He has now lost 11 of his 14 Ryder Cup matches on Fridays – including both with Phil Mickelson in 2004. And he was rested/dropped for the afternoon Friday session for the first time.

Woods (right) will go out again with Reed in the third fourball match this morning, with American captain Jim Furyk ruling out any recurrence of his long-standing back problems.

Furyk said: “I have not heard that he’s had a back problem so I would say that that’s not true. You’d have to ask Tiger but I saw him out on the golf course and said he was all good.

“He was actually out practising tonight after the matches. I think any time Tiger doesn’t play, or maybe he stretches a little bit, everyone gets a little hypersensitive that he might have a back issue.”

Captain America Reed, the top-scoring player in the last two Ryder Cups, dumped two balls in the water as the

USA lost their only match in the morning session.

Reed also sat out yesterday afternoon after the 3&1 defeat by Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco

Molinari.