McIlroy and Lowry battle in a classic to edge Europe to three-point lead at Bethpage
PUMPED: Rory McIlroy makes eagle to win the 7th alongside Shane Lowry in the Friday four-balls of the 2025 Ryder Cup at Black Course at Bethpage State Park
In terms of tempo, this Rory McIlroy-Patrick Cantlay combination really shouldn't work. How can you make dance partners out of a lead who swings with wild abandon and a follow who drags his feet stultifyingly slowly?
Yet when the battle for this little gold cup rolls around every couple of years, the oddest couple make for the most compelling dance partners. For Friday and Saturday in Rome 2023, see this sultry September Friday on Long Island.
Shane Lowry and Sam Burns were involved in the foursome number, the final piece of one hell of an opening show at Bethpage Black, but the most compelling and consequential moves were made by the dance partners in the middle. And yet in the end, it finished not with a flourish but a flurry of missteps.
By the end of the opening day of the 45th Ryder Cup, Europe found themselves with a three-point lead, yet walked off the 18th green with a slight sense of disappointment hanging in the thick air. Luke Donald's side lead a fitful and underwhelming American team which won just two of the eight matches as Europe raced into a 5.5 to 2.5 lead.
Yet the only match of the day to be halved was the one which left at least two members of Donald's dozen with a small sense of regret. In the final clash of the afternoon fourballs on Long Island McIlroy and Lowry split the eighth point with Cantlay and Burns in a battle that ebbed and flowed but culminated in some utterly cracking matchplay golf.
McIlroy was doing much of the heavy lifting as Lowry struggled in an atmosphere thick with heat and no little vitriol pouring out of galleries, which hadn't nearly live up to pre-tournament expectations for raucous noise. They did find their rancid edge as the Friday evening empties piled up.
McIlroy, mostly indomitable and briefly irked by some barbs from the stands, left the last cup of the day empty as a putt to give Europe a 6-2 lead slipped agonisingly by on the left edge. He and Cantlay had traded haymakers down the stretch, the putts missed as compelling as those made. It was terrific stuff and reminded you of the best that this tournament brings out of people.
On a Friday that swung to some bizarre extremes and places, there been plenty of the opposite too though.
US captain Keegan Bradley cavorted around the first tee in front of the visiting Donald Trump, dancing and bowing before the US President at the midway point of proceedings. But if he is to be remembered as any sort of leader himself, Bradley has to find a way to arrest some deeply alarming aspects of his team's desperately poor opening day when America didn't deliver inside or outside the ropes.
The galleries had been forced to get here at an ungodly hour to traverse a course where essentially martial law had been instituted, secret service personnel turning the grandstand into a hyper-policed lockdown zone, snipers perched on the roof of Bethpage's clubhouse. In the skies, America's addiction to intimidation and empire, was evident more than once. One morning military flyover wasn't enough and so we had a second helping of ear-splitting warplanes screeching low over the course to greet Trump's arrival.
Inevitably it was Bryson DeChambeau who was the cartoonish cavorter in chief, led out for afternoon foursome duty by Trump. In both the morning and afternoon session, DeChambeau tried to bring the giant grandstand at the first to the boil with booming drives towards the green 400 yards down a dogleg.
Where did all this get him — and America? Nowhere good. Amid an atmosphere that was never intimidating but was instead wavered between insipid and insulting, DeChambeau finished the day 0-2. So too did the world No.1 Scottie Scheffler, a shadow of himself or anything useful. That leading duo heading out the gates 0-4 may be the most damning aspect of the day but there were plenty more. Collin Morikawa and Harris English may well go down as the worst pairing in the modern history of this thing, offering nothing as McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood roasted them before lunch was even a thought.
Before the afternoon belonged to Europe, the morning had been deeply blue too. Donald and his support staff again found the special sauce in the pivotal foursomes, the alternate shot format going all their own way. Fleetwood-Mac were on song but so too was the Jon Rahm-Tyrrell Hatton combination. In between those two teams, Matt Fitzpatrick and Ludvig Aberg were stellar in taking down Scheffler and rookie Russell Henley. Fitzpatrick, who'd arrived here with a vexing 1-7 Ryder Cup record, was sensational, firing lasers of irons from everywhere and holing putts too.
Across the entire day, Rahm and McIlroy were probably the two most consequential performers but Fleetwood wasn't far behind. That trio combined for 5.5 out of 6 points.
Unsurprisingly, Donald opted to send out the same four teams who had performed almost to perfection, Viktor Hovland and Bob MacIntyre letting one slip late to Cantlay and Xander Schauffele. On the flipside there were open jaws in the media centre when Bradley opted to send Morikawa and English, who widely respected analytics platform Data Golf rank 132nd out of 132 possible combinations, back out again Saturday morning.
Bradley moved them to second but unfortunately for him Donald had flipped McIlroy and Fleetwood into that slot too so we will get a repeat of a match that was an utter rout first time out.
DeChambeau will once again lead off the American challenge, this time alongside Cam Young, probably the best American performer of the day. The hosts will need a whole lot more than a MAGA fist pump and brief burst of fireworks from DeChambeau. From Scheffler, signs of life are essential.
A Saturday evening re-run of the McIlroy-Cantlay dance would be fine and dandy. By which point, unless the hosts shake out of it, Europe could be waltzing away with things.
Matt Fitzpatrick & Ludvig Aberg vs Bryson DeChambeau & Cam Young (12.10pm); Rory McIlroy & Tommy Fleetwood vs Collin Morikawa & Harris English (12.26pm); Jon Rahm & Tyrrell Hatton (12.42pm); Robert MacIntyre & Viktor Hovland vs Russell Henley & Scottie Scheffler (12.58pm).
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