Tiger, U.S. face 10-6 deficit
SAINT-QUENTIN-EN-YVELINES, France — Tiger Woods kept bending over in anguish, his shoulders sinking further and further, his energy ebbing as he made his way around Le Golf National for the second time Saturday.
It was the body language of a tired, defeated golfer.
It was quite a contrast to the previous weekend, when Woods triumphantly strutted down the final fairway at the Tour Championship in Atlanta, savoring his first victory in more than five years as thousands of fans stormed the course behind him.
Then again, this is the Ryder Cup — one of the few blemishes on Woods’ brilliant record.
Woods dropped all three of his matches in the first two days, cut down each time by the European team of Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari. Playing with two different partners, none of Woods’ matches reached the 18th hole. In fact, his pairing has held the lead for a total of three holes the entire weekend, and the United States trails Europe 10-6 heading into the singles matches Sunday.
It was hardly what was expected from his first Ryder Cup appearance since 2012.
‘‘The three matches we played, they never missed a putt inside 10 to 12 feet,’’ said Woods, whose record has fallen to 9-19-1 when playing with a partner in the Ryder Cup. ‘‘That’s hard to do. Playing against a team like that, that’s putting that well, you’re going to have to make a lot of birdies. We didn’t.’’
Woods teamed with Patrick Reed for fourball matches Friday and Saturday morning, then switched to Bryson DeChambeau for a foursome match Saturday afternoon. The new partnership didn’t fare any better than the first.
The duo known as ‘‘Moliwood’’ led from the first hole on the way to a 5-and-4 whipping, the match ending when DeChambeau missed a birdie putt at the par-5 14th.
The struggles of Woods & Co. are a big reason his star-studded team faces a daunting deficit heading to the singles. While it’s certainly not impossible to pull off such a comeback — the United States did it in 1999 at Brookline and Europe in 2012 at Medinah — the U.S. team hasn’t won the Ryder Cup on this side of the Atlantic in a quarter-century.
‘‘We’ve got some work to do,’’ Woods said. ‘‘Hopefully we can get off to a quick start and get up in some of these matches and turn the tide a little bit.’’
For whatever reason, the Ryder Cup always has been a struggle for Woods. The team nature of the event never has seemed to fit with his lone-wolf approach and steely focus. He has played a total of 36 matches in eight appearances and won only 13.
‘‘That’s the frustrating thing about match play,’’ Woods said. ‘‘We can play well, and nothing can happen. We ran up against two guys that were both playing well. And when one was out of the hole, especially in best-ball, the other one made birdie and vice versa. They did that a lot to us.’’