Not since the Marshall Plan have the Americans been so generous to Europe. And Tiger Woods has been among the most munificent in this 42nd Ryder Cup.
On Friday, he and Patrick Reed gifted a point to Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood in the opening fourball, 3&1, before he skipped the afternoon foursomes to rest his back. On Saturday, he and Reed gift-wrapped the quiet Italian and his long-haired Southport mate the morning fourball, 4&3. And, as the American team sought to apply a tourniquet to the haemorrhage, the same European combination – Moliwood, as they have become known - were grateful for a 5&4 victory when Woods and the nervous debutant Bryson DeChambeau failed to click in the afternoon foursomes.
The hat-trick of disappointments took Woods’s losing streak in the competition to seven since 2010, and there is no certainty the survivor of four major surgeries, who was lauded for breaking a five-year drought with victory in the Tour Championship in Atlanta last week, can breath life into his 42-year-old legs in the singles on Sunday.
Meanwhile Fleetwood, with Molinari’s help, became the first player since Larry Nelson in 1979 to win his opening four Ryder Cup matches – and the first European to do it. Fleetwood said greenside: “I’m a little bit emotional right now, and we’re only on Saturday. We were really, really good this afternoon. I’m just glad that we’ve done our job for the team. We’ve had a great time.”
Molinari added: “We came here to do a job and it wasn’t to go in the record books or anything like that, it was about winning for the team. It’s not going to be easy, but we’re doing it properly. We’re doing it the right way.”
Fleetwood’s story is as uplifting and left-field as Woods’s fairy tale has turned downbeat. There have been tennis players coached by their mothers on the ATP Tour, but only the 27-year-old Fleetwood on the golf circuit is managed by a wife 20 years older than him.
He and Clare, who married in the Bahamas last October, are a popular item in golf, with his fellow players, fans and the media. The Americans, particularly, have taken to the smiling Brit with the flowing mane. “Need to know what conditioner he uses,” Michelle Wie tweeted.
Fleetwood might be the only golfer on the Tour with hair longer than his son. Frankie, who is here with his mother, celebrated his first birthday last week. This is also the first Ryder Cup Fleetwood has attended. “I’ve never been to a Ryder Cup in my life,” he revealed. “This is my first experience of it all. I’ve only ever watched it on TV.”
There was plenty of material for videoed replays on Saturday, as he and Molinari ground down their floundering opponents. For Woods it was an all-round tough day.
Sheathed in his wind-and-water protective gear on a cool but hardly arctic morning to prevent stiffness in his rebuilt back, Woods fought a doomed campaign in the fourball alongside the irretrievably wayward Reed. When they lost on Friday, there at least was dialogue between them; not on Saturday. Woods virtually ignored Reed, who hit more water than a duck.
Reed stubbornly ignored the breeze in his short-sleeved shirt but, if the Americans were in two minds about the elements, Woods at least remained focused enough to keep them in the fight until halfway, making birdies on the 7th and 11th. However, three birdies on the spin by Molinari, aided by Woods’s missed chance on 13, sucked the fight from their cold bones.
The last gasp was left to Woods on the 15th, Reed having again gone for a swim. Needing a long, down-hiller to match Fleetwood and stay in the contest, he pulled his par putt to the left, and another Ryder Cup battle had dissolved in front of his unbelieving eyes.
Woods had seen it all before. It is not a view he likes. And it was with trepidation that he returned to the battle against Fleetwood and Molinari with DeChambeau – his 14th partner in 29 pairings - in the afternoon foursomes.
“I think you’re really going to see them fight this afternoon,” the USA captain, Jim Furyk, had said beforehand. Instead, their totemic player collapsed, rose briefly, then succumbed.
If Woods was appalled by the profligacy of Reed in the morning, he was surely bemused when he witnessed at close quarters the trembling putter of DeChambeau on the 1st, which put them one down, and his stiff-armed slice off the tee on the third, when he found the “Patrick” reeds, as they surely ought to be remembered.
Under pressure, Woods’s own game suffered, an ambitious flop shot from the back of the green falling woefully short to leave DeChambeau a long, winding roll to halve the hole. He missed. Moliwood were three up after six, needing just one birdie.
Not even a rub of Phil Mickelson’s belly (an American good-luck “tradition” that began at the Presidents Cup in 2016) would have halted the slide, although the likelihood of Woods indulging in that with Lefty would be slim, even allowing for their new detente. Mickelson – rested on Saturday – partnered DeChambeau in the foursomes on Friday; the search for ideal chemistry with the professor continues.
Woods overshot the 190-yard 8th with a seven-iron, dribbling into a hollow. Four down through eight. They trailed by five on the turn. Woods grabbed birdies on the 10th and 11th to scramble back to three down. Hope flickered, but not for long. Fleetwood struck with the putter to restore their four-hole advantage.
Woods turned into a right-handed Bubba Watson from the water’s edge for the approach shot on the 13th hole; two feet off the ground and lifting his right leg high after blasting the ball to the green. It briefly lit a fire in him, but the cause was lost, and he has rarely looked so woebegone as when he slipped away from the 18th.
