Darren Clarke admits his Europe team deserved to lose 4-0 in foursomes
Saturday 1 October 2016 02:24, UK
Europe Ryder Cup captain Darren Clarke admitted the USA deserved to win the opening foursomes session 4-0.
Team USA got off to the perfect start in the 41st Ryder Cup as they produced a crushing clean sweep of the opening session at Hazeltine National.
And Clarke conceded that the Americans had outplayed his team but remained upbeat about retaining the Ryder Cup.
"We didn't fire on all cylinders," Clarke said.
"However, foursomes is a difficult game. We were looking forward to it with our line-up. The Americans played better than us and 4-0 was a fair result. There are many points to play for yet. Obviously it's not an ideal start but we've come back from deficits like this before."
Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed dealt the opening blow against the star pairing of Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson before Rory McIlroy and Andy Sullivan went down to Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler, who were two down with four to play but turned the match around.
Sergio Garcia and Martin Kaymer edged into an early lead over Jimmy Walker and Zach Johnson at the second and the next nine holes were halved, but the match turned when the European pair bogeyed the 12th and went onto lose 4&2 win.
The bottom match proved to be a torrid debut for Thomas Pieters alongside Lee Westwood, who struggled from the outset and lost five of the first eight holes against an inspired Dustin Johnson and Matt Kuchar.
