FARMINGDALE, NY — Europe has strengthened what is becoming a vice-like grip on the Ryder Cup with another dominant display in the morning foursomes at Bethpage Black on Saturday morning.
The Europeans took a commanding three-point lead into the Saturday morning session after winning both sessions on Friday and produced another dominant display on Saturday to race into an almost unassailable 8.5-3.5 lead.
The individual matches proved much tighter than they did in the Friday morning session when the Europeans blew their Americans off the course, but the overall outcome remain the same, with Europe winning both sessions by a 3-1 margin.
Jon Rahm, who has now won three points from three matches at the Ryder Cup, produced yet another virtuoso performance alongside Tyrrell Hatton to inspire the Europeans to a massive victory over the American pair of Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay.
Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood, meanwhile, produced yet another impressive display to defeat Collin Morikawa and Harris English for the second consecutive morning.
Scottie Scheffler’s wait for a Ryder Cup point goes on after another disappointing morning for the World Number 1 and Russell Henley in a narrow defeat against Robert MacIntyre and Viktor Hovland.
Bryson DeChambeau & Cameron Young’s emphatic victory against Matt Fitzpatrick & Ludvig Aberg in the opening match of the session provided a solitary glimmer of light for Keegan Bradley’s Team USA in what is fast becoming a European rout.
The Europeans have now guaranteed that they will carry a lead into the Sunday singles, regardless of if the Americans sweep the Saturday fourballs or not.
Bradley’s charges simply must avoid defeat in that fourth session of the tournament if they are to have any hope of regaining the Ryder Cup from Europe.
The morning session had briefly threatened to go America’s way after DeChambeau and Young sealed a comprehensive 4&2 victory over Fitzpatrick and Aberg on the 16th, which temporarily lit a spark under an underwhelming home crowd.
That victory coincided with a mini-wobble from McIlroy and Fleetwood midway through the back nine which saw English and Morikawa reduce a four-hole deficit down to two with three holes left to play.
A fired-up DeChambeau did his best to ignite the home crowd as English and Morikawa prepared to tee off on the 16th – and there appeared to be a sliver of hope when Morikawa found the fairway and Fleetwood found the rough. However, McIlroy, who faced no small amount of heckling as he prepared to take on the shot, stepped up to the plate magnificently by stitching his approach within ten feet.
Fleetwood drained the putt to hand Europe their first point of the morning in a 3&2 victory and quash any hopes of a European collapse. They were made to sweat for it though, having won the same match by a much more comfortable 5&4 margin on Friday morning.
Schauffele and Cantlay were responsible for the solitary American point in the Friday foursomes and threatened to spoil the European party again on Saturday in a tit-for-tat encounter with Rahm and Hatton.
They had clawed back an early two-hole advantage by the seventh hole of the match and appeared to have all the momentum, only for the magnificent Rahm to chip in from a ridiculous position off the green on the par-3 eighth to swing the match back in Europe’s favor.
With Rahm to the fore, the European pair dominated the back nine to seal a dominant 3&2 victory on the 16th.
The final match of the morning also produced by far the closest encounter of the session, with Scheffler and Henley seeking to redeem themselves against MacIntyre and Hovland after a disastrous 5&3 defeat against Aberg and Fitzpatrick on Friday morning.
The American pair produced two birdies in three holes midway through the back nine to claw back a two-hole deficit and appeared to have all the momentum going into the final five holes. Again, however, the Europeans responded immediately, with MacIntyre producing an immaculate tee shot on the par-3 14th and Hovland sinking the birdie putt to retake the lead.
Hovland drained a huge putt on 17 to halve the hole and maintain a one-hole lead going down the 18th before Scheffler badly miscued his approach to seal a 1UP victory for the Europeans.
Scheffler came into the Ryder Cup as the undisputed best player in the world after winning the Open Championship and PGA Championship earlier in 2025. However, he has now lost all three Ryder Cup matches that he has played, going down to a fourball defeat against Rahm and Sepp Strake alongside US Open champion J.J. Spaun.
