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SHEBOYGAN, Wisconsin – The pairs for the first Friday morning foursome matches (alternate shots) of the 43rd Ryder Cup are in place.
World No. 1 player Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia, who single-handedly totaled as many career points (25 ½) as the entire US team in 2021, will play Justin Thomas’ US power duo. and Jordan Spieth in the first game.
“I’m sure the whole world will watch this one,” said European captain Padraig Harrington.
In the second match, Dustin Johnson and defending British Open champion Collin Morikawa will face Paul Casey and Viktor Hovland, the youngest of the European squad.
Lee Westwood, the 48-year-old Englishman playing his tied for 11th Ryder Cup, will team up with compatriot Matt Fitzpatrick to face Brooks Koepka and Daniel Berger of the United States in Game 3.
In the fourth and final game of the morning, Patrick Cantlay, defending PGA Tour Player of the Year, and his good friend Olympic gold medalist Xander Sc Chaudele, both Ryder Cup rookies, will face Rory McIlroy and Ian Poulter.
It’s four fascinating matches, the first to start at 8:05 a.m. (EDT).
Spieth and Thomas were one of the couples unsurprisingly due to the success they had together. They went 3-1 in 2018 games outside of Paris. Spieth has a combined 7-1-2 foursome record in the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup.
Garcia has a career record of 10-4-3 in the Ryder Cup quartets with eight different partners.
US captain Steve Stricker has said he expects Europe to face Rahm and Garcia first and McIlroy in game four.
The American players seated for the morning games are Bryson DeChambeau, Harris English, Scottie Scheffler and Tony Finau.
On the European side, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton, Shane Lowry and Bernd Weisberger will be seated in the morning.
Stricker wouldn’t say if the four players absent from the morning games would play the four afternoon balls (best ball), although that does not happen. Harrington said his plan was for his 12 players to play on Friday.
Stricker, when making his captain’s picks, pointed out that a big part of his decisions was player length. That made the fact that DeChambeau will be sitting on Friday morning somewhat surprising.
“We try to make sure everyone gets a little rest; it’s in the back of our minds, ” he said. “We can’t play with everyone every session. [DeChambeau] is going to have his turn at some point. The good thing is that all of these guys joined. They know the plan. We communicated this to them and they understand [the plan] and are all on board. ”
DeChambeau will almost certainly be paired with either Scheffler or the Englishman (he trained with both this week) in the afternoon’s four balls.
In an interesting twist, only one of Harrington’s four morning couples trained together this week.
“We knew our partnerships well in advance,” said Harrington. “You don’t want to be bored playing with a guy [too much]. I really wanted the players to mingle with each other and have the full experience with the other players on the team. In my personal experience, you want to show up on Friday and still have that freshness, that enthusiasm, that excitement and that intrigue when you go out. ”
The United States team has traditionally been dominated in the quartets by Europe, which won six of those eight matches in 2018 and went 5 ½ to 2 ½ in 2016 and 7-1 in 2014. The last time the United States was United got the better of Europe’s alternating shot was in 2012, when they won five of eight.
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