Team Europe handed the Americans a historic defeat at the Ryder Cup on Friday, sweeping the afternoon foursomes session by the largest margin in history.
Team USA had a feeling of optimism after Friday’s morning session at the Ryder Cup. They didn’t end that way.
The Europeans, after the U.S. won three of four matches in the first session, swept the afternoon foursomes for the first time in Ryder Cup history. The matches weren’t even particularly close: all of them ended in a lopsided score of at least 3 & 2. Never has a team swept all four matches of a Ryder Cup session by such a margin.
Team Europe takes a 5-3 lead into Saturday’s matches at Le Golf National outside Paris as they try to extend a Ryder Cup winning streak on home soil that extends to 1993.
The defeats suffered by Team USA in the afternoon left captain Jim Furyk searching for answers. Furyk sat Tiger Woods and Brooks Koepka for the second match while pairing up Phil Mickelson, who ranked 192nd on the PGA Tour this season in driving accuracy, with rookie Bryson DeChambeau. The move didn’t pay off, as Mickelson and DeChambeau fell seven down by the turn before losing to the team of Sergio Garcia and Alex Noren 5 & 4.
Furyk isn’t willing to concede defeat, however. He admits there is room for improvement for his team, but gives credit to the Europeans for stepping up their play.
“If you look at the scores, I realize it’s match play, but the European side played really good golf this afternoon,” Furyk said after play completed. “I mean, my hat’s off to them. Every one of their matches was even-par to under-par on a pretty difficult setup in difficult conditions, where the wind was blowing 20 miles an hour.”
“I realize our guys aren’t really happy with the way they played, but we have to look at the fact that they did play really well.”
In contrast to the struggling Americans, the European side produced their share of heroes on Friday. The team of Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood won the last three holes in the morning to beat Woods and Patrick Reed, Europe’s only points of the session, before blowing past Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas in a 5 & 4 afternoon romp.
Foursomes have traditionally been trouble for the Americans. Team Europe now has a 13-point advantage in foursome matches since 2006. Furyk hinted at changes to the American lineup for Saturday, saying, “We do have to shore things up, and I’m guessing we’ll probably switch things up the afternoon tomorrow. We’ve already kind of been thinking about that.”
Despite the momentum Europe carries into Saturday, Furyk recognizes there is still plenty of golf left to play this weekend, pointing out that only eight of 28 points have been decided so far. He says his team will be motivated by their poor showing this afternoon and come out even stronger tomorrow.
“I think our guys will respond, I really do,” he said. “I have a lot of confidence in this team. Obviously, it’s going to leave a sour taste in their mouth tonight, and we’re going to have to sleep on that. So we’ll come back tomorrow, and I bet we’ll be firing.”
Saturday’s matches begin at 8:10 a.m. local time (2:10 a.m. EST), with Furyk going back to the same pairings he had on Friday morning: Brooks Koepka and Tony Finau, Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler, Woods and Reed and Thomas and Spieth.