Europeans begin the fightback after foursome whitewash
Clarke’s men left up against it after USA dominate the early proceedings
EUROPE’S bid for an unprecedented fourth successive Ryder Cup win got off to a calamitous start at Hazeltine yesterday but the shell-shocked visitors slowly began to find their feet and emerged fighting on a compelling day of fluctuating fortunes.
Amid a raucous, patriotic fervour in the Minneapolis suburb of Chaska, the USA roused the vocal locals by surging into a commanding 4-0 lead during the opening session of foursomes. It was the first time since 1975, when the late Arnold Palmer was the US captain, that the foursomes had ended in a complete whitewash.
Palmer passed away at the start of Ryder Cup week and with his bag from that 1975 event standing on the first tee as a tribute, an inspired American team held the upper hand for most of the session before turning two of the matches around in the closing stages to leave Darren Clarke’s European team on the back foot.
The visitors rallied in the fourballs, however. They had built healthy leads in three of the four afternoon matches with Henrik Stenson and Justin Rose, playing in the top match against Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed, leading from the front. Rose, pictured, closed out a 5&4 win to give Europe their first point as Clarke’s men battled to salvage something from the wreckage of the morning.
PESKY time differences and deadlines eh? By the time you settle down to read these haverings from Hazeltine, Europe will either have mounted a rousing Ryder Cup comeback or will be still so far behind the USA they may as well hold the prize giving ceremony this afternoon.
On the back foot, behind the eight ball, in a pickle? You name it, Europe found themselves in it during a jaw-dropping morning session in the 41st staging of golf’s grand transatlantic rumpus.
A 4-0 US whitewash in the foursomes, only the fifth clean sweep in the history of the contest and the first for over 40 years, gave a rampaging Team America the kind of start the Task Force could not have concocted in their wildest dreams.
The last time the US romped into such a healthy advantage was in 1975 when Arnold Palmer was the captain. In the week of his passing, it was perhaps fitting that the Americans doled out a lesson from history.
By high noon on the opening day of the opening series of matches, those of a European persuasion were already muttering the words ‘well, we’ll just need to produce another Miracle of Medinah’. They were certainly trying to conjure one as the fourballs unravelled mind you.
The first four points may have been plundered by the Americans but with 24 still to play for as the afternoon session got underway, the old Dad’s Army catchphrase ‘don’t panic’ may have been getting trotted out in a flustered team room. There’s plenty of golf to play yet.
Darren Clarke’s motto for his battalion of 12 good men is ‘shoulder to shoulder’ but it was the Americans who were head and shoulders above them in those crucial, early exchanges as they grabbed the initiative in a tight double nelson.
“We’re a fortified team,” declared Zach Johnson. Clarke must have felt like grasping for the fortified wine after a fairly sobering morning in which his best-laid plans were smothered in the stars and stripes and booted into Lake Hazeltine.
The old sages say that it’s always important for an away team in a Ryder Cup to try to silence the crowds. There wasn’t much chance of that at a jam-packed, boisterous venue that was bursting at the seams.
They don’t get a heck of a lot of major golfing events in this neck of the woods but the Minnesotans love their sport and the patriotic, partisan masses generated a quite fearsome din. The US players were doing their bit to crank up the volume, of course. In total, Davis Love III’s men produced a profitable haul of 19 birdies in the four matches compared to Europe’s eight.
The inspired Patrick Reed, all bulldog spirit and fist-pumping, teamed up with his fellow Texan Jordan Spieth and the young gunslingers from the Lone Star state shot down the experienced alliance of Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson.
Reed and Spieth were unbeaten in pairs during their Ryder Cup debuts at Gleneagles in 2014. Rose and Stenson had won three out of three in partnership in Perthshire too. Three birdies over the first seven holes from the US duo swiftly left that unbeaten record in tatters.
When Reed trundled in a 12-footer on the 16th to complete a 3&2 win, the roars sounded like they were being blasted through a stack of Marshall amps. Everywhere you turned, the US were holing putts. As for Europe? “We couldn’t buy a putt,” said Rose. It summed up the collective lack of spark.
With an out-of-sorts Lee Westwood doing little to aid Belgian rookie Thomas Pieter’s cup debut, it was no surprise that the European pair went down to heavy 5&4 defeat to Matt Kuchar and Dustin Johnson. They may have been 2-0 down but things were looking more upbeat for Europe in the middle order. Well, they were until the pendulum swung quite dramatically. Momentum is big in the Ryder Cup and the US took ownership of it.
Jimmy Walker and Zach Johnson had been one down to Sergio Garcia and Martin Kaymer after 11 but they came with a charge that should have been accompanied by a bugle and birdied 13, 14 and 16 to surge to a 4&2 win.
Europe desperately needed to salvage something and when Rory McIlroy stroked in birdie putts at the 13th and 14th to give himself and Andy Sullivan a two-hole lead over Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler it looked like they would. But they bogeyed the next, lost the 16th to a birdie and then conceded the par-three 17th when Sullivan’s tee-shot plunged into the water.
McIlroy’s last-ditch attempt to pinch a half on the last failed and the US won by one hole. “I felt more pressure going into this match than any other in the Ryder Cup,” said a relieved Mickelson, who effectively set in motion the Task Force.
Pressure is the name of this game. The US piled it on over the course of the opening morning. Europe had to find a way to rally and exert some of their own. And they did. Suddenly there were putts going in and there was plenty of morale-raising European blue on the board as the visitors burst into life in the fourballs.
Miracles occasionally do happen. In the Ryder Cup, the Europeans are well aware of that.