The first potential clues about competitive Ryder Cup pairings have been revealed as Tuesday’s practice session at Marco Simone begins.
Both Team USA and Team Europe have clustered likely duos together as the sides try to fine-tune their respective playing chemistry prior to Friday morning’s big kick-off.
In an eyebrow-raising twist by home captain, Luke Donald, the 2023 Ryder Cup will begin with foursomes – a format not used to start the biennial contest on European soil since the US team last claimed victory in 1993.
Donald believes it will give the men in blue the best possible chance to claim the spoils in the first session and garner early momentum in their quest to regain the little gold trophy on Sunday.
Given all 12 Europeans played the recent BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, where Donald admitted he had asked for certain members of his team to be paired together, most have already soaked up some experience of likely playing partners – although in a different setting.
Both captains will have considered plenty of factors when deciding on the optimum duos to start the team competition, including which golf ball each player prefers to use, and Tuesday’s pairings are therefore highly likely to reflect who partners who into the cauldron of noise on the first tee in less than 72 hours.
When practice began on Tuesday, Team Europe were given the green light to start on the first at 10am CET – with Rory McIlroy leading out Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry, and Sepp Straka.
Lowry and Straka both play the Srixon Z-Star XV, so that could suggest they’ll play foursomes together. McIlroy also paired with good friend Lowry at Whistling Straits last time out.
Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland, Ludvig Aberg, and Tyrrell Hatton followed McIlroy’s quartet 15 minutes later, leaving Justin Rose, Robert MacIntyre, Nicolai Hojgaard, and Matt Fitzpatrick as the last European group to tee off at Marco Simone on Tuesday.
Rory and Viktor back together again 😍#TeamEurope https://t.co/emSSLFY6W1 pic.twitter.com/SyHoTtrLSYSeptember 26, 2023
Rahm and Hatton played together over the first two days at the BMW PGA Championship and also paired with each other at Whistling…
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