Sergio Garcia: 'The whole team is very proud of Rory no matter if he goes 0-5'
FORM GONE: Rory McIlroy goes out first in Sunday's signals in a show of support from Europe captain Padraig Harrington.
Tony Finau warned Europe's players they will be shown no mercy as the United States targeted a comprehensive Ryder Cup victory at Whistling Straits.
Steve Stricker's side take an 11-5 lead into Sunday's 12 singles matches and required just three and a half points to win the biennial contest for only the second time since 2008.
But Finau revealed he and his team-mates had no intention of settling for simply securing the win after previous US sides were beaten by record nine-point margins in 2004 and 2006.
"I don't think it gets talked about enough in the Ryder Cup (but) sometimes your job, when you have a healthy lead like this, (is to) just wear out some of the great players," said Finau, who was drawn to face European talisman Ian Poulter in the singles.
"The way I look at it, we've got one heck of a healthy lead. We've got 12 hungry guys to get this thing done. They have a really tall task in front of them, a score that's never been overcome. They have run the score up on us before. And if we have the opportunity, we are going to run it up on them. We have guys that are hungry to win a point."
Former world number one Rory McIlroy will be sent out in the opening singles match for the third Ryder Cup in succession, despite having lost to Patrick Reed at Hazeltine in 2016 and Justin Thomas in Paris three years ago. McIlroy had also lost all three of his matches at Whistling Straits without even reaching the 16th hole and faced a daunting task against Olympic champion Xander Schauffele, who had won all three of his matches.
McIlroy's performance at Whistling Straits has been poor but the Irishman pledged to come out fighting on Sunday.
"It's disappointing not to contribute a point for the team yet," he said. "Hopefully (I can) just go out tomorrow and try my best to get a point and hopefully we can rally and at last give them something to maybe sweat about in the middle of the afternoon."
Sergio Garcia, whose partnership with fellow Spaniard Jon Rahm has been a rare highlight, sprang to the defence of McIlroy.
"I told him the absolute truth. I told him that not only me but the whole team is proud of him no matter if he goes 5-0 or 0-5," he said. "We love him and we are always proud of the effort he makes and the heart that he puts into his golf and into the team. It's as simple as that. Obviously it's not the week he was hoping for, without a doubt, not the week we were hoping for, for all of us, at least until now. But we are still very proud of every single one of our team-mates."
Shane Lowry, Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia will follow McIlroy out as Padraig Harrington seeks the fast start required to have any chance of retaining the trophy, with Lee Westwood, Tommy Fleetwood and Matt Fitzpatrick in the last three matches.
Europe famously overturned a 10-6 deficit at Medinah in 2012 by winning eight and a half points in the singles and Harrington said: "I'm sure they know they have a very tall order ahead of them, but it's still possible.
"It's only half a point more (required) than we won in the singles at Medinah. 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."
Ian Poulter admits they will need a "beyond monumental effort" to retain the Ryder Cup as they trail the United States 11-5 heading into the final day.
"We're not in a good position and it's going to take a beyond monumental effort. So we need a couple of miracles," said Poulter.
Even the biggest optimist would rank victory for Europe as improbable, especially with a pumped-up partisan home crowd whose behaviour at times has overstepped the mark.
"I think they have been calling out some of the guys that have been chanting some interesting words, should we say," said Tyrrell Hatton.
"It's just unfortunate that a few of them do silly things like opening cans at the top of your backswing. It's a little bit unnecessary. Obviously you want to play a fair game.
"We get the support when we are at home so we expected a hostile atmosphere and that's what we've got so far this week.
"The majority of the fans have been great, to be fair."
: Rory McIlroy v Xander Schauffele; : Shane Lowry v Patrick Cantlay; : Jon Rahm v Scottie Scheffler; : Sergio Garcia v Bryson DeChambeau; : Viktor Hovland v Collin Morikawa: : Paul Casey v Dustin Johnson; : Bernd Wiesberger v Brooks Koepka; : Ian Poulter v Tony Finau; : Tyrrell Hatton v Justin Thomas: : Lee Westwood v Harris English; : Tommy Fleetwood v Jordan Spieth; : Matt Fitzpatrick v Daniel Berger.
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