Ryder Cup 2010: Europeans take 3 points lead in Sunday Foursomes
Sunday afternoon thrilled as Europeans figured out a way to take the Americans down after initially lagging behind by 2 points. The team led by Colin Montgomerie headed towards the Monday singles with 9½ points.
Points seemed like a hand ball all day that was being passed back and forth between the two sides. Earlier, Saturday had ended with 6-4 points but Sunday was altogether a different scenario. The Americans looked tougher and more focused. They started with
a blast and the afternoon score was already hovering at 4-6 with Americans in the lead.
Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker were simply incredible while Bubba Watson and Jeff Overton looked overcharged and as for Jim Furyk and Hunter Mahan, they remained unbeatable. But, at the exact moment when the tournament started to go against the European
team, heavy rain began to pour on the course of Celtic Manor and as a result, the match had to be stopped for a while. After the delay, the picture flipped and Europeans surged back into lead.
The Foursomes and rain turned out to be a bad combination for Cory Pavin’s squad as Woods crashed to the worst match play and Phil Mickelson earned the title of most defeats. Never in the history of Ryder Cup had any player recorded such a huge number of
defeats as Mickelson did. After Sunday’s round, the only four Americans that deserved appreciation were Mahan, Rickie Fowler, Overton and Watson. Rest of the team, despite packed with experience gave the worst performances.
Europeans had an edge of the home course while, on the other hand, terrible weather had the opposition running down chill in the spine. However for the Europeans, rain proved to be a blessing in disguise. The evidence for this came as Francesco Molinari
birdied the final hole of the day to seize a half with his brother Edoardo. According to Padraig Harrington, "It is the Sunday we have probably all dreamt about, unfortunately there is a Monday."
The player who gave this statement claimed 2&1 against Furyk and Johnson in the foursomes. A day earlier Harrington had lost along with his partner Luke Donald against Watson and Overton. Europe now needs only four of the 12 singles to ride the 2010 Ryder
Cup whereas the Americans, who haven’t won singles since 1993, will have to bag 7½ points for a tie that would enable them to return home with the cup.
The overall picture of Sunday’s session was a hectic one for Pavin as he saw Montgomerie’s men dropping only half a point in the competition's first six-game session. Although, he was quite disappointed with the falling points but still he assured his team
that together they will sort a way out to deal with it. Pavin said, "I am really proud of the guys because they fought hard and hopefully we can figure out how to do it."
Meanwhile, the European striker was happy with his team as they won all the foursomes except the third match which was halved. Montgomerie said, “That's incredible what happened there, all credit to every one of them. This is what the word momentum is all
about and when Woods and Stricker lost 6&5 to an inspired Lee Westwood and Luke Donald, it helped us all through.”
The Europeans have thus entered Monday for the singles with a lead of 3 points. The Americans need 7 points to win whereas the Europeans require only five.
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