Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton grab first point of the 2023 Ryder Cup beating Sam Burns and Scottie Scheffler
The European team took the lead at the 2023 Ryder Cup after the semi-finished Friday foursomes match. Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton added the first point to their team after defeating Sam Burns and Scottie Scheffler by 4&3.
Hatton and Rahm took the lead in the tournament after grabbing a point on the second hold. They added another point on the fifth and then on the seventh.
Burns and Scheffler grabbed a point for their team on the sixth hole. The European team added two more points to the 11th and 12th holes and registered a victory by 4&3.
Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Aberg also won their match adding one more point to the European team. They defeated Max Homa and Brian Harman by 4&3. Hovland and Aberg added two points on the first two holes and then added two points on the fifth and sixth.
Noticeably, the other two pairings also maintained the lead in the game. Shane Lowry and Sepp Starka have a 2-up lead over Rickie Fowler and Collin Morikawa while Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood have a 1-up lead over Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay.
"It’s a big deal" - Jon Rahm on the European team being undefeated on home soil in 30 years at the Ryder Cup
The European team has not lost the Ryder Cup on their home soil in three decades. The last time, Team USA registered a victory in the biennial event in Europe was in 1993 and since then, they struggled to win the cup on foreign soil.
This year the tournament is taking place in Rome, Italy and the European team is looking forward to maintaining their dominance on the home course.
Ahead of the commencement of the tournament, Job Rahm attended a press conference in which he opened up about the legacy Europe holds. The Spanish golfer said that his team is determined to keep the sequence alive in 2023.
Speaking about the Ryder Cup, Rahm said:
"It’s a big deal. You want to stretch the streak as much as possible. Hopefully we can get into the 30s of years of Europe being undefeated here at home.”
He also opened up about his bonding with the team members saying:
"We had some individual videos and some collective videos. There were very few players not shedding a few tears on Monday afternoon. I can say that. A lot of it was family-related and the reason why all of us are here. I don’t want to say too much more than that. But if you guys were to watch it, it would make you feel a lot of the same emotions we felt.”
The European team consists of Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, Tyrrell Hatton, Viktor Hovland, Nicolai Hojgaard, Ludvig Aberg, Justin Rose, Shane Lowry, Robert MacIntyre, Matt Fitzpatrick, Sepp Straka and Tommy Fleetwood.