Sometime Sunday afternoon, the United States team should reclaim the Ryder Cup.
Steve Stricker’s team has dominated the action for two days, winning three of the four team-play sessions by 3-1 margins then pulling out a 2-2 tie in Saturday afternoon’s Foursomes (best-ball) play at windy Whistling Straits.
The U.S. takes an 11-5 lead into the Sunday singles and needing just 3 1/2 point to sew up the victory, this one should be over early.
Stricker is sending out Olympic Gold Medalist Xander Schauffele to start the Sunday singles. He’ll play Rory McIlroy, who has performed miserably for Europe. Patrick Cantlay, who has teamed so well with Schauffele, goes out second and faces Shane Lowry, one of Europe’s few bright spots. In the third singles match, it’s Scottie Scheffler taking on the world’s No. 1 — Jon Rahm from Spain. Rahm has been the only solid performer for Europe, accounting for 3 1/2 of those five European Points.
Here’s how the rest of the singles matches stack up:
Fourth Match Out: Bryson DeChambeau vs. Sergio Garcia.
Fifth Match Out: Collin Morikawa vs. Viktor Hovland
Sixth Match Out: Dustin Johnson vs. Paul Casey
Seventh Match Out: Brooks Koepka vs. Bernd Wiesberger
Eighth Match Out: Tony Finau vs. Ian Poulter
Ninth Match Out: Justin Thomas vs. Tyrrell Hatton
Tenth Match Out: Harris English vs. Lee Westwood
Eleventh Match Out: Jordan Spieth vs. Tommy Fleetwood
Twelfth Match Out: Daniel Berger vs. Matthew Fitzpatrick
Keep in mind, the U.S. needs just 3 1/2 points and should take six on a bad day. Europe on the other hand, would have to muster a comeback of historic proportion. Three teams in the history of the Ryder Cup have come back from 10-6 deficits. No team has come back from 11-5.
This U.S. team featured a half-dozen new Ryder Cup faces and they’ve performed as expected.
This one should take too long to wrap up on Sunday afternoon.
