It was a moment that felt specially designed for Rory McIlroy. The final putt of the first day of the 2025 Ryder Cup. The 18th green. The New York sun setting behind the grandstand and every European and American player hooked, every wife and girlfriend in their designer fedoras, every vice-captain and clinger on, every fan at the end of a long, sticky day huddled around the edge of one green, watching one player.
There was a little piece of Ryder Cup history yearning to be written. McIlroy could win the last match of the day and turn the screw on a beleaguered US team who’d been beaten up on home soil. The putts that came before had missed on the low side. He rolled his ball high, but it stayed there, missing by half a cup.
McIlroy looked anguished and was consoled by playing partner Shane Lowry, but half a point was a fair reflection of an epic see-saw battle with Patrick Cantlay and Sam Burns. Moments earlier, Justin Rose had sunk the winning putt to clinch a one-up win with Tommy Fleetwood over Bryson DeChambeau and Ben Griffin, and it meant Europe edged the afternoon fourballs to take a 5½-2½ lead into Saturday’s play.
It was clear long before McIlroy’s missed putt that the European plan had worked to a tee. The entire strategy was to take the winning feeling of Rome, box it up with the same captain and almost exactly the same team, and run it all over again. Winning on Friday has historically been crucial and Europe did that emphatically here at Bethpage.
“It’s a great day for Europe,” McIlroy said. “We would have absolutely taken this last night if you had told us we would be 5½-2½ up. Obviously in the moment I’m disappointed I didn’t hole that for a full point but the guys have done so well today. Right now it’s just about resting up and getting ready for tomorrow.”
It is the first time Europe have led after the first day on US soil for more than 20 years. McIlroy was peerless, particularly in the morning foursomes when his putting killed off the match. He wasn’t the only European leader to step up. Jon Rahm won two dominant points against USA’s kingpins, DeChambeau and Scottie Scheffler, while Fleetwood’s iron play was immaculate and crucial in both the morning and afternoon as he also earned two wins from two.
Luke Donald and his most important vice-captain, Edoardo Molinari, can take plenty of credit. They created new foursomes pairings in Aberg-Fitzpatrick and MacIntyre-Hovland, and while the latter lost their closely fought morning match, the former were ruthless in dismantling the world No 1 Scheffler and his rookie partner Russell Henley. Scheffler later lost his fourball match to Sepp Straka and an inspired Rahm, and looked utterly bereft at the end of the day.
Much of the talk before this Ryder Cup had been about whether Europe could handle the heat of an American crowd, whether they could keep their head amid the heckles. But their fast start quickly quietened the fans and the hostility was relatively tame compared to years gone by. There is still time, and a lot of golf to be played, but Europe do not look overawed by the situation, and coming with an experienced team no doubt played into their fearless approach.
“It’s not easy out here,” said Donald. “It’s loud. The crowd is certainly on the US side but we have some crowd support as well, which is fun. I’m so proud of these guys, they know how to handle that situation.”
Key to silencing the crowd was stifling DeChambeau. America’s long-driving, chest-thumping alpha was excitable on the first tee, and there were moments when he hyped the partisan crowd, but for the most part DeChambeau was unusually subdued and that seemed to seep into the air around Bethpage State Park.
“0-2 today, pretty disappointed,” DeChambeau said. “I played good golf, just not good enough, and they made everything. Luck is on their side right now. There were so many putts that just didn’t go in for us that went in for them.”
It is hard to know exactly what impact, if any, Donald Trump’s arrival had on the contest, but it certainly added a layer of tension around the venue. Fans were funnelled through airport-style body scanners. Drones hovered overhead and sniffer dogs wearing signs saying “do not pet” patrolled the pathways. At every turn there were men with small guns, men with big guns, men with big and small guns.
Trump backslapped the American players as they arrived on the first tee and a supportive crowd whipped themselves into a frenzy. The US seemed to produce better tee shots than the Europeans in that brief period when Trump lingered behind them at the start of the afternoon foursomes, but soon he was gone and forgotten, and the early splashes of red on the scoreboard were washed away.
Rahm and Fleetwood were Europe’s leading lights and McIlroy will feel he should have matched their two-point hauls. As he walked off the 18th green, deflated, he buried his face into Fleetwood’s shoulder. Yet the team were buoyed. Their plan worked and they take a commanding lead into Saturday, a rare thing on American soil. And perhaps the strangest part was that Europe could afford to watch McIlroy’s ball slide past the hole.
