Ryder Cup Saturday foursomes pairings named as Brooks Koepka and Jon Rahm star

Padraig Harrington and Steve Stricker have announced their Saturday morning Ryder Cup foursomes pairings. As predicted, Team USA got off to a strong start on Friday, first by winning three of the four morning matches before two more victories and two ties in the afternoon’s fourball rounds.

Team Europe captain Harrington will be hoping his choices can inspire a turnaround after enduring a difficult first day at Whistling Straits.

John Rahm and Sergio Garcia won the first foursomes match in the morning to give the visitors a brief lead, but it all went pretty much downhill from there.

Despite most of the European players not actually playing too badly, the Americans found birdies left, right and centre to dominate in front of an adoring Wisconsin crowd.

Dustin Johnson and Collin Morikawa comfortably beat Paul Casey and Viktor Hovland, even though the Norwegian debutant performed well in his Ryder Cup bow.

It was a little tighter in the third match, but Daniel Berger and Brooks Koepka got over the line 2&1 against Lee Westwood and Matt Fitzpatrick.

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And Xander Schauffele starred alongside Patrick Cantlay to blow Rory McIlroy and Ian Poulter away in the anchor match, winning the first five holes and never looking back before securing the victory with three holes still to play.

Harrington hoped his afternoon fourball picks would be able to pull it back, but none of the four matches were won by the Europeans as Team USA romped to an overall four-point lead on Friday.

Schauffele was excellent again, this time alongside Johnson as they strolled to victory over Casey and rookie Bernd Wiesberger.

Tony Finau was in lethal form as he played his first round of this year’s tournament, and formed a formidable partnership with Harris English to blow Shane Lowry and McIlroy away – a bad day at the office for the Northern Irishman.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though, as Rahm barely put a foot wrong again in his afternoon match, this time alongside the similarly impressive Tyrrell Hatton, who sank his birdie putt on the 18th to tie their match with Bryson DeChambeau and Scottie Scheffler.

And the duo of Hovland and Tommy Fleetwood rallied after giving up a three-hole lead to hold their nerve and at lease make sure they won half a point for Team Europe.

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