Lowry still has faith as Harrington readies European troops to chase bigger miracle than Medinah

THAT'S MY BOY: Shane Lowry, with his father Brendan in the background, celebrates making a clutch 12ft putt to claim a 1 up victory with Tyrell Hatton over Harris English Tony Finau. Pic: Warren Little, Getty Images)

Europe will need a miracle bigger than Medinah.

After losing a third consecutive 3-1 session in the morning and only halving the afternoon four-ball matches, Europe trails 11-5 heading into Sunday’s 12 singles matches at the 43rd Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits.

The highly-ranked U.S. team only needs three-and-a-half points on Sunday to win back the Ryder Cup on home soil. To retain the Ryder Cup, captain Pádraig Harrington’s team will need to pull off nine points out of 12 against an American lineup that includes nine of the top 11 players in the Official World Golf Ranking. No team has ever rallied from greater than four points down in singles to win the Ryder Cup.

Just don’t tell Shane Lowry, who delivered a mandatory point with an 11-foot putt on the 18th green in Saturday afternoon’s four-ball, that it’s impossible.

“We're still not out of it,” Lowry insisted. “It's a long day tomorrow, 12 matches. If any 12 of us were going out against any of them in the match play, we would fancy our chances. We just have to believe. It's all about believing.

“I read a quote last night. I was looking at stuff on my phone, and for some reason it popped up, and it was like, ‘If you've got a 1 percent chance, you have to have 100 percent faith.’ And I just think that we really need to live by that tonight and tomorrow and go out and give it our best.” 

Harrington has a difficult motivational task ahead of him.

“Obviously we would have liked to have won the session, eaten into that lead,” Harrington said. “Six points is a tough one to make up tomorrow, but I think we were a half-point short of that in the Miracle at Medinah on Sunday, so we're just going to have to push for that tomorrow.” 

Team Europe was hoping to chip away at America’s six-point lead in the afternoon four-ball matches, and for much of the session blue colored three of the matches on the scoreboard.

But while Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia delivered their third straight match win together (2 and 1 over Brooks Koepka and Jordan Spieth) and Lowry and Tyrrell Hatton hung on for a 1-up win over Tony Finau and Harris English in the opening two matches, the U.S. won the last two to halve the session and retain its nearly insurmountable lead.

Rahm has delivered 3 ½ points for Europe, and the world No. 1 closed out a match that was all square through 14 holes with birdie putts of 7 and 29 feet on Nos. 15 and 16 and made all five of the birdies in the session to win holes.

“This afternoon he was unbelievable,” said Garcia, who ran his Ryder Cup record totals to 25 match wins and 28½ career points in three victories with Rahm. “I was No. 1 spectator watching a great guy do great thing after great thing after great thing. It was awesome to be a part of. I was so happy. I was just trying to keep him up and make sure he kept heading in the right direction. You know, it was great to see.

“But we have a big task tomorrow, and hopefully let's see if we can make history.” That task was made more difficult by the absence of contribution from world No. 15 Rory McIlroy. The Holywood man continued his dismal week, again partnering with Ian Poulter in the final four-ball match after they both sat out the morning foursomes. McIlroy failed to make a single birdie (and only one eagle) in two four-ball matches and they fell behind early again as they floundered to a 4-and-3 defeat to the 3-0 partnership of Dustin Johnson and Collin Morikawa.

Only three of the 12 team matches played failed to reach the 16th hole, and McIlroy was on the losing end of all three of them.

“Obviously disappointing,” said McIlroy. “Disappointing not to contribute a point for the team yet. So hopefully just go out (Sunday) and try my best to get a point, and hopefully we can rally and at last give them something to maybe sweat about tomorrow in the middle of the afternoon.” 

Despite his struggles, McIlroy will lead off the Sunday singles against Xander Schauffele. Behind him Harrington front-loaded his strongest players hoping to gain some momentum, with Lowry, Rahm, Garcia, Viktor Hovland and Paul Casey rounding out the top six matches against six American player who have not lost a match this week.

Lowry will face Patrick Cantlay, Rahm against Scottie Scheffler, Garcia against Bryson DeChambeau, Hovland against Morikawa and Casey against 4-0 Dustin Johnson.

The back field of the singles include: Bernd Wiesberger vs. Brooks Koepka; Poulter vs. Finau; Hatton vs. Justin Thomas; Lee Westwood vs. English; Tommy Fleetwood vs. Spieth; and Matt Fitzpatrick vs. Daniel Berger.

Hoping the cut the U.S. lead to at least 10-6 – a deficit that has twice been overcome by the Americans in 1999 at Brookline and the Europeans in 2012 at Medinah – the opportunity slipped away in the third four-ball match in which Viktor Hovland and Fleetwood let three 1-up leads slip away.

They were still 1-up on the 13th green when Fleetwood missed a 10-footer for birdie that would have retained the slim advantage. But the power-hitting American team of DeChambeau and Scheffler birdied four consecutive holes from 14-17 to close out a 3-and-1 victory.

Earlier Saturday, Hovland let a 3-up lead with foursomes partner Bernd Wiesberger slip away in a loss to Justin Thomas and Spieth. Hovland and Fleetwood also let a 3-up lead slip away in Friday’s four-ball and settled for a halve with Thomas and Spieth.

With its slim chance, 100 percent faith might not be good enough to stave off Europe’s third defeat in 10 Ryder Cups this century.

“We're not in a good position and it's going to take a beyond monumental effort,” said Poulter, who is 0-2 as a captain’s pick this week. “So we need a couple of miracles.” 

“I'm sure they know they have a very tall order ahead of them, but it's still possible,” Harrington said. “At the end of the day … it's only half a point more than we won in the singles at Medinah. It's not really that important in the sense of the team. They have to just go out there and win their own individual match. There's nothing more they can do than that. They have to focus on that and not look at that bigger picture and focus on their individual self and play their game and win that and then just see how it adds up.”