Our Blog - Ryder Cup 2018 - Saturday (Day 2)
Saturday started a bit cold, and so here I have on the polo shirt, plus a pull-over jacket, plus the wind/rain jacket. We stopped by the volunteer headquarters to grab a cup of hot tea before we ventured out.
One of the European vice-captains, José María Olazábal.
For Saturday, many of the pairings looked the same, especially on the US side where the same four pairs that played in the Friday morning sessions (and won 3 out of 4 matches) were back playing together Saturday morning. Only a minor ordering change took place, with Thomas and Spieth moving to the end of the lineup.
Tony Finau and Brooks Koepka again lead the US team, this time against Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia. The US pairing did well on Friday, winning their match, and were put out first again to try to spark something on the US side.
No pictures worth posting (we were too far away) of Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler, who went up against Paul Casey and Tyrrell Hatton. Nor of the third match, which saw a rematch of the previous days matchup between Tiger Woods-Patrick Reed and Francesco Molinari-Tommy Fleetwood. The US team was hoping for a better outcome than they had on Friday (they lost after leading through the 10th hole).
Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth moved to the end of the lineup and faced Ian Poulter and Jon Rahm and I was able to grab a close-up of the Europeans as they walked from 16 to 17 in the morning session, right before we took our places.
We took our places for the afternoon session, and today we were monitoring one of the crossings, just before where the fairway started. We had to keep people who were crossing the hole from walking up on the fairway. Amazing how many people said "can we just touch the fairway" ... geez ... it is just grass :-)
The European team flipped the Friday morning scores, taking 3 points to 1.
We actually got 1 match that made it to hole #17 on Saturday and I was able to grab some pictures as the players walked by me. First up, the Americans Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, followed by Henrik Stenson and Justin Rose
After staying late on Friday evening, we left while it was still light on Saturday and were able to get a peek of the grounds staff working on hole #11, getting it ready for the Sunday singles matches.
The afternoon matches were split 2 points US and 2 points Europe, giving Europe a lead going into the Sunday singles matches.