Keegan Bradley faces scrutiny over player power in the United States Ryder Cup team and his own inflexibility after the captain produced curious pairings for the Saturday morning foursomes at Bethpage. Bradley and the US are under pressure after Europe won both sessions on Friday, taking them to a 5 ½ to 2 ½ lead as they seek to retain the trophy.
The respected analytics site Data Golf had Collin Morikawa and Harris English as 132nd in a list of compatible American players for foursomes. Morikawa and English slumped to a 5&4 foursomes defeat to Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood on Friday morning. Not only has Bradley returned Morikawa and English for Saturday morning but they will face the same European duo.
“We’re really comfortable with our plan,” said Bradley. “We’re really comfortable with those two players. Excited [by] who they are playing tomorrow. It will be an exciting match and we’re sticking to our plan. We’re not going to panic. We’re not going to panic and make those sort of mistakes. We’re going to stick to what we know.”
Pressed on the rationale behind his decision, Bradley hinted at a theme which has regularly surrounded US teams. “They were really bummed out that they lost their match today,” added the captain. “They were eager to get back out on the course and that’s why we did that.”
Bradley has also retained Russell Henley in partnership with Scottie Scheffler. That duo, who lost to Ludvig Åberg and Matt Fitzpatrick on Friday morning, will now face Robert MacIntyre and Viktor Hovland. The European captain Luke Donald has retained the foursomes pairings from a 3-1 session win, changing only their order. Åberg and Fitzpatrick will lead off for Europe against Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Young. The remaining match will see Europe’s Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton face Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay.
The American players struggled on Bethpage’s greens on day one; it would be no shock if they are speeded up for Ryder Cup Saturday. “When you try too hard in golf, you don’t play as well,” said Bradley. “We go out tomorrow, we get back into our process. We have a whole different mindset. We are playing from behind.”
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Donald has no such issues, albeit the Englishman was keen to stress the Ryder Cup has a long way to run. “The only one thing that people remember is who is the winner on Sunday,” Donald said. “That is our goal and that continues to be our goal. I am very excited and proud of the team, how they dug in there. It’s a tough environment out there. The crowd was loud and like we expected.”
Donald said he unaware of footage circulating online which many claimed showed McIlroy gesturing towards US supporters on the 11th hole of the afternoon session. The images are not particularly clear. McIlroy was a target for heckling throughout much of Friday.
