Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari remained on course to create history and inflict yet another defeat on Tiger Woods as Europe looked to maintain their healthy lead in the 42nd Ryder Cup.
Fresh from overturning an early 3-1 deficit by winning a foursomes session 4-0 for the first time in the contest’s history, the home side came out firing on the second day at Le Golf National in Paris to move 8-4 ahead of a shellshocked United States side. Fleetwood and Molinari, whose win over Woods and Patrick Reed was the only European success on Friday morning, then repeated the feat in style on the back of three consecutive birdies from the 11th from Open champion Molinari after Woods had somehow dragged the match back to all square. The fourth match was the only one which went against the home side as Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas beat Ian Poulter and Jon Rahm 2&1, despite the European pair being seven under par. However, the eight matches won in a row since trailing 3-0 on Friday morning was the most by any side since the current format was introduced in 1979 and gave Thomas Bjorn’s men a four-point cushion heading into the afternoon foursomes. Unsurprisingly Bjorn kept faith with the pairs responsible for Friday’s whitewash and saw a rested Henrik Stenson and Rose move two up on Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka in match one. Garcia and Alex Noren were unable to reproduce their Friday form and were four down at the turn to Bubba Watson and Webb Simpson, but Molinari and Fleetwood were ahead by the same score against Woods and new partner Bryson DeChambeau. Poulter and McIlroy won the first two holes against Spieth and Thomas but then conspired to lose the next three in succession. Victory for Molinari and Fleetwood would make them the first European pair to win all four matches together in a Ryder Cup, while a defeat for Woods would be his 20th – just one short of Phil Mickelson’s record.
Rory McIlroy and Sergio Garcia survived a nervy finish to lead from the front and beat Brooks Koepka and Tony Finau, before Paul Casey and Tyrrell Hatton were a combined nine under par in a 3&2 victory over world number one Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler.
