‘Moliwood’ pair worthy successors to Spanish heroes
Molinari and Fleetwood are best of friends and also showed superb teamwork to destroy Woods and Co
CHIEF SPORTS FEATURE WRITER
Moliwood,” they are calling Europe’s rock-star duo of Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood, the odd couple who have pulled off a Ryder Cup feat for the ages by trampling over Tiger Woods three times in two days.
For 20 years, the Europeans have sought out worthy successors to Seve Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal, the gold standard by which all golf pairings are judged. At last, the heirs presumptive have emerged, in the unlikely shape of a pocket-rocket Italian and an insouciant Merseysider with a shock of pop-idol hair.
Where their Spanish forebears captivated as cultural emblems, with Ballesteros and Olazabal’s expressive bond perfectly capturing their Iberian temperaments, these two are almost inversions of national archetypes. Molinari, the Open champion, is anything but the mercurial Latin kind, having carved a reputation as a cold-blooded surgeon of a player.
Likewise, Fleetwood is the antithesis of the reticent Englishman once the Ryder Cup adrenalin starts bubbling, a figure unafraid, even as a rookie, of wildly celebrating every hole won.
It is remarkable to reflect that when the first pairings were announced, US pundits muttered darkly that Molinari and Fleetwood would be sacrificial lambs, reduced to dust by the Tiger buzzsaw. But just as Molinari made a mockery of that theory in the final round at Carnoustie, screening out the fervour around Woods (his playing partner that day) to prise the Claret Jug from the great man’s grasp, so he showed much the cooler judgment again here.
As he and Fleetwood closed out a 5 & 4 filleting of Woods and Bryson DeChambeau, the emotion between them on the 14th green was striking in its intensity. Asked how Carnoustie compared to the maelstrom that has engulfed him on the edge of Paris, Molinari replied: “Nowhere near.”
In the history of these matches, only Larry Nelson, a US rookie at the 1979 Ryder Cup in West Virginia, boasts the distinction of winning five points out of five. Both Molinari and Fleetwood have the chance to equal that mark in singles today, after marmalising the top rank of American talent with a joyous flourish. Indeed, not one of their four victories even went down the 18th. Their strategic brilliance, borne of dozens of European Tour rounds at Le Golf National, coupled with sheer disregard for the status of their adversaries, has helped yield one of the most exhilarating dynamics in decades.
Refreshingly, both are defiant free spirits, with Molinari eschewing theatrical chest-beating in favour of brilliant golf and Fleetwood escaping the goldfish bowl of the team room to attend his son’s first birthday party. “Frankie’s one of my best friends, not just on tour but in life,” Fleetwood said. “He has a lot of experience, he’s an amazing golfer, and I have been very lucky to be partnered with him.”
Heavy-hitters galore have been humbled at their feet. Take Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, swept aside 5 & 4 in Friday’s foursomes, or Patrick Reed, so errant in the company of Woods, his childhood inspiration, that he could scarcely hit a fairway yesterday. Reed made himself ripe for derision by putting a finger to his lips to silence the crowd at the ninth, only for his ineptitude to lead, ultimately, to a 4 & 3 defeat. The eclipse of Reed, always the US team’s most eager belligerent, did not go unnoticed by Molinari’s brother, Edoardo. “Captain America must have no passport,” the elder Molinari tweeted during the match. “No sign of him in Paris.”
Woods, for his part, was entitled to feel aggrieved. He let slip, after a third straight defeat, of his exasperation, explaining that he did not believe he had played poorly. There was some truth to his verdict. For if the twists of this Ryder Cup have shown anything, it is that the task of finding a partner for Woods who can bring out his best remains a near-impossible conundrum. Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari seemed to grow closer as their historic day developed, gazing at one another in the morning, fist-pumping in the afternoon and, finally, embracing after making history for Europe over the opening two days Phil Mickelson? Jim Furyk scotched that idea at the outset. Reed? Forget it. The self-styled linchpin of this American side was a hapless shadow of his Hazeltine self.
As for DeChambeau, the supposed mad scientist in the US contingent could find no answer to the equation of how to work with Woods.
Indeed, the debutant looked so addled by nerves that Woods appeared to choose to have little to do with him, walking ahead of him on the fairways and engaging in precious little conversation. The old Tiger was back, just not quite the one everyone had envisaged. Gone was the comeback king of last weekend and in its place was the smouldering sulk and perennial Ryder Cup whipping boy. While Mickelson might languish on a record 21 Ryder Cup losses, Woods now has 20, in four fewer editions.
It is a statistic that raises doubt over the notion of Woods’s late-stage reinvention as a team player. He remains happiest, one senses, when he does not have a lead weight of a partner dragging him down. The members of “Moliwood”, by contrast, continue to drive each other to ever giddier heights.
‘Frankie’s one of my best friends, not just on tour but in life. He’s an amazing golfer’