U.S. Forges Early Lead at Ryder Cup


The Americans got off to a good start in the 2014 Ryder Cup. In the opening fourball session on a chilly, 50-degree Friday morning at Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland, the Yanks won two of the four matches, halved a third and lost the fourth for a 2½ to 1½ lead over the Europeans.

In the first match between Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson and Bubba Watson and Webb Simpson, the Brit and the Swede rolled to a 5 and 4 win. After a Stenson birdie on the second hole the European duo never trailed.

The next match involved Thomas Bjorn of Denmark and Germany's Martin Kaymer against Rickie Fowler and Jimmy Walker and the teams battled to a halve. Europe took the lead on the first hole with a Kaymer birdie and kept the lead through 17 holes. But a Walker birdie on the par-5 18th gave the Yanks a tie and a half-point.

The Americans then won the final two matches, with Ryder Cup rookies Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed strolling to a surprisingly easy victory over Stephen Gallacher and Ian Poulter. Poulter, a 36-year-old Brit, came into this year's biennial competition with a superb 12-3 record in four previous Cups.

The last time Poulter lost a point the 20-year-old Spieth was in high school and the 24-year-old Reed was in college.

Spieth got things going with a par on first, and he and Reed tacked on six birdies - while Poulter and Gallacher had only one in the morning - the rest of the way to close out the match on the 14th hole.

In the final match before the lunch break Keegan Bradley and Phil Mickelson eked out a 1-up victory over Europe's top-rated team of Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia. In a back-and-forth contest that totaled eight birdies and saw neither side go up by more than two, Mickelson made a clutch birdie on the last to secure the win.

Four players from each team who didn't play in the four morning fourball matches teed it up in the afternoon foursomes. Among those who sat were Spieth and Reed. "I felt like in alternate shot, him and I would have been great to go back out and take the momentum of what we had just done," Reed said. "But at the end of the day, captain Watson, he picks the pairings for a reason."

In the foursomes (alternate shot), Wales' Jamie Donaldson and England's Lee Westwood are going against Jim Furyk and Matt Kuchar; Rose and Stenson returned to play Hunter Mahan and Zach Johnson; McIlroy and Garcia go against Fowler and Walker; and Frenchman Victor Dubuisson and Northern Ireland's Graeme McDowell are matched up with Mickelson and Bradley.

Tom Watson was honored before the start of the morning matches with a lengthy standing ovation. The five-time winner of Claret Jugs, including four in Scotland, was serenaded by fans singing "There's only one Tom Watson."

For updated scoring, visit http://www.rydercup.com/usa/scoring?autorefresh=1.