Team Europe secured their first-ever clean sweep in the morning session of a Ryder Cup at Marco Simone thanks to some lights-out play from the eight men in blue.
Almost every putt seemed to drop for Luke Donald’s side in the fiercest of white-hot starts while Zach Johnson’s initial octet were having tremendous trouble finding the bottom of the cup with any regularity.
The first two pairings of Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton, plus Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Aberg, bagged 4&3 successes over a quartet of Americans who – with the exception of Max Homa who took part in the recent Fortinet Championship – had not played competitive golf for over a month.
Scottie Scheffler, Sam Burns and Brian Harman’s last outing was the Tour Championship at East Lake – an event which took place in Atlanta during the latter part of August.
Meanwhile, Shane Lowry and Sepp Straka earned a 2&1 win over Rickie Fowler and Collin Morikawa before Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood squeezed out a 2&1 victory against Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele. None of the US quartet here had played since Georgia, either.
Conversely, all 12 of the European team played – and made the cut – at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in mid-September as part of their preparations for Italy.
With the exception of Brooks Koepka, all of Team USA could have likely played the DP World Tour’s flagship event at Wentworth or the PGA Tour’s Fortinet had they wanted to, but none chose to – causing some criticism from fellow American, Billy Horschel.
And in the available DP World Tour events either side of the BMW PGA Championship, Aberg lifted the European Masters title as Matt Fitzpatrick and Nicolai Hojgaard finished in the top five, McIlroy took part in the Irish Open alongside Team Europe captain, Donald, and Robert MacIntyre teed it up at last week’s Open de France.
Ludvig Aberg with the trophy after winning the Omega European Masters
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Back onto the other side of the coin, only three of Team USA’s dozen had felt the competitive juices flowing since the season ending race for the FedEx Cup. Justin Thomas featured alongside Homa at the Fortinet on the PGA Tour while Koepka…
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