FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton have put Team Europe on the verge of an increasingly rare achievement: a Ryder Cup win on the road.
Team Europe is a mere 5 1/2 points away from retaining the Ryder Cup and six points from winning it outright after once again thrashing the United States team in foursomes Saturday morning at Bethpage Black.
As defending champs, the Europeans need just 14 points to retain the Cup and 14 1/2 to win. They established an 8 1/2-3 1/2 lead after the third of five sessions, with afternoon fourball and Sunday’s 12 singles matches still to come.
The home team has won each of the past five Ryder Cups, a run that began after Europe’s come-from-behind upset in 2012, the “Miracle at Medinah.”
Any home-field advantage the U.S. had entering the week was undone by Europe’s dominance in foursomes. Europe went 6-2 in the format this week after winning seven points in foursomes in 2023.
“You really just have to focus on the task at hand,” McIlroy said. “I think in the team format, foursomes, fourball, you can stick together with your partner and it makes it a little bit easier.”
Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley represented the final hope for American points, but Norway’s Viktor Hovland and Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre pulled out a 1-up victory. Scheffler, ranked No. 1 in the world, fell to 0-3-0 through three sessions.
After a slow start, Scheffler and Henley birdied the 11th and 13th holes to tie the match. Europe responded at the par-3 14th with Hovland’s 5-foot birdie putt. The U.S. failed to win the par-3 17th despite Europe’s tee shot landing 90 feet from the pin, and Scheffler’s approach shot at No. 18 settled in a native area between bunkers, handing Europe the full point.
Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Young rolled to a 4-and-2 victory over Englishman Matt Fitzpatrick and Swede Ludvig Aberg for the first point of the morning. Young, a Ryder Cup rookie and native of nearby Scarborough, N.Y., is the only American player currently 2-0-0.
“I’ve been fortunate to have two great partners thus far, and we’d love to be giving the fans a bit more of a reason to be going nuts, but I think that’s still coming,” Young said.
But the duos of McIlroy-Fleetwood and Rahm-Hatton improved to 4-0-0 in foursomes over the past two competitions.
McIlroy of Northern Ireland and Fleetwood of England defeated Collin Morikawa and Harris English for the second straight day, this time 3 and 2. The Europeans raced out to a 4-up lead through eight holes. After Morikawa and English took Nos. 14 and 15 to make the deficit more respectable, McIlroy stuck his approach at No. 16 to about 3 feet and Fleetwood’s birdie tap slammed the door.
“We played phenomenally well for 12 of the holes and for the next few holes it was like we were always kind of one golf shot away from the match being over. I made a hash of a couple of things,” said Fleetwood, who had a par putt lip out at No. 14.
“Yeah, I just think where we put ourselves, obviously it made it very difficult for them, they played great towards the end there. Having that buffer there and that lead helped massively, and then Rory hitting that shot on the last, so that was good.”
Spanish star Rahm and Englishman Hatton beat the most experienced American tandem, Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay, also 3 and 2. The match was all square before Rahm pitched in for birdie from an awkward lie while standing in a bunker at the par-3 eighth, and the U.S. never won another hole.
“The only benefit to the whole situation is that (the Americans) were off the green, as well,” Rahm said. “So I could afford to be aggressive and hopefully leave him a decent putt. I was honestly just trying to put it on the green, right.
“Hopefully hit it somewhere online, somewhere with the right distance, and it came out absolutely perfect. It’s a bit of luck involved but at least the ball was lying well and got really decent contact on it.”
The Americans need to have a robust afternoon just to stay in contention. No team has overcome a Saturday deficit larger than 10-6 to win a Ryder Cup.
U.S. captain Keegan Bradley put Scheffler and DeChambeau together for the first time for a fourball match against Fleetwood and countryman Justin Rose. The other matches feature Young and Justin Thomas against McIlroy and Irishman Shane Lowry; Schauffele and J.J. Spaun against Rahm and Austrian Sepp Straka; and Cantlay and Sam Burns against Hatton and Fitzpatrick. It was originally slated to be a Hovland-Fitzpatrick pairing, but Hatton replaced Hovland minutes before the match due to a neck injury.
–Adam Zielonka, Field Level Media
