FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Team Europe is all but assured to win the 45th Ryder Cup after Saturday’s one-sided performance at Bethpage Black, leaving more spotlight on the home fans’ interactions with Rory McIlroy.
Captain Luke Donald and the Europeans hold a commanding 11 1/2-4 1/2 lead over the United States team ahead of Sunday’s 12 singles matches. They need 2 1/2 points from those matches to retain the Cup and three points to win outright.
Earlier Saturday, Europe became the first team in Ryder Cup history to win the first three sessions as the visitors when it took morning foursomes 3-1. McIlroy and company made it four straight sessions with a 3-1 edge in the afternoon fourball.
Outplayed and outmaneuvered all weekend, Keegan Bradley and the Americans would need to make history to pull off the comeback. The largest Saturday margin overcome in Ryder Cup history was 10-6 — by the U.S. in 1999, and by Europe in 2012.
McIlroy of Northern Ireland and Shane Lowry of Ireland defeated Justin Thomas and Cameron Young, 2 up, in the face of constant jeers that prompted extra security guards and around 10 state troopers to join the match at the turn.
The home crowd chanted “(Expletive) you, Rory” at the first tee and elsewhere on the course. Another popular chant was “U.S. Open, U.S. Open,” a reference to McIlroy squandering leads there in 2023 and 2024.
McIlroy at one point yelled at fans to “shut the (expletive) up” when fans heckled while he was addressing his ball. At the ninth green and multiple other points of the match, Thomas signaled to the U.S. fans to be quiet for McIlroy.
Word trickled out to the fans on social media that their heckling was becoming the focus of the day. “Don’t say anything naughty about Rory,” one American fan said sarcastically.
McIlroy released some emotion with a yell at the par-3 14th, where he rolled in his first birdie of the afternoon to put Europe 1 up.
At the par-3 17th, Thomas spun his tee shot to 13 inches of the cup and Europe conceded the birdie. McIlroy was loudly heckled up to the moment he hit his birdie try, which slid past. But Lowry sank his birdie to halve the hole, and the pair of friends finished the job at No. 18.
“Look, when you play an away Ryder Cup, it’s really, really challenging,” McIlroy said. “It’s not for me to say. You know, people can be their own judge of whether they took it too far or not. I’m just proud of us for being able to win today with what we had to go through.”
It also got feisty in the second match, in which Englishmen Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose prevailed 3 and 2 over the Americans’ stars, Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau.
Fleetwood and DeChambeau got in a shouting match as they walked to the 16th tee, with Scheffler’s caddie Ted Scott also involved.
“I was waiting to putt,” Rose said. “The (Americans) were obviously working on their read … so I sort of waited a few seconds and then I felt like they came up again and I was sort of — I questioned whether — I was like, ‘It’s my putt, right?’ Or however I said it.
“Maybe I didn’t say it as politely as I could have said it in the moment, but by no means was there any disrespect or anything like that, but obviously it was taken the wrong way.”
World No. 1 Scheffler has had a nightmare week, becoming the first player since the Ryder Cup format changed in 1979 to go 0-4 in the opening four sessions of the event.
J.J. Spaun prevented a shutout when he birdied Nos. 17 and 18 to turn a 1-down deficit into a 1-up win alongside Xander Schauffele over Spaniard Jon Rahm and Austrian Sepp Straka.
The last match also arrived at No. 18 all square, and Englishmen Matt Fitzpatrick and Tyrrell Hatton hit identical approaches within 3 feet of the cup, Hatton’s ball kissing Fitzpatrick’s. Patrick Cantlay and Sam Burns couldn’t make birdie, handing Europe a 1-up victory.
Hatton was a late substitute for Norway’s Viktor Hovland, who aggravated a neck injury during morning foursomes and may be questionable to play Sunday.
