Luke Donald\u2019s side led the United States 5.5-2.5 after a memorable Friday at Bethpage Black where McIlroy was at the centre of the action.<\/p>\n
After his \u2018Fleetwood Mac\u2019 reunion ended in perfect harmony as he and an on-song Tommy Fleetwood thumped Collin Morikawa and Harris English 5&4 in the morning fourballs, he was engulfed in a thrilling fourballs battle where drama was never far away.<\/p>\n
It came down to the last putt where the Northern Irishman was millimetres away from giving his side a 6-2 first-day lead. Instead he and Shane Lowry had to settle for a half against Sam Burns and Patrick Cantlay.<\/p>\n
But there was controversy on the 11th hole as McIlroy appeared to gesture towards someone in the crowd as he walked off the 11th green.<\/p>\n
He and his partner Lowry had just gone two up when he responded to an unkown comment from the crowd.<\/p>\n
That did not take the shine off the day for McIlroy, who was able to reflect on a strong start for Europe, even though his missed putt on the 18th hole stung.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously right now, I\u2019m disappointed I didn\u2019t hole out for a full point,\u201d McIlroy said on the 18th green.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s been a great day for Europe. We have come out of the gates really strong like we wanted to.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, we should be really proud of ourselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would have absolutely taken this last night if you had told us we would be 5.5-2.5 up.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously in the moment right now, I\u2019m disappointed I didn\u2019t hole that for a full point but the guys have done so well, and right now, it\u2019s just about recovering and resting up and getting ready for Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier, European Robert MacIntyre had a spat with an American member of the crowd following a comment made about his weight on the 17th tee.<\/p>\n
Much had been made of the Bethpage Black crowd in the build-up to the tournament and how they were expected to make it a hostile \u201cbear pit\u201d.<\/p>\n
But McIlroy and Co helped keep them largely quiet.<\/p>\n
On the crowd\u2019s antics, he added: \u201cIt was what we sort of expected. It was rowdy and lively. They made it difficult for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, but I felt like Shane and I, we handled that really well and dug in. Made some good swings and good putts when we needed to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Captain Luke Donald was not aware of the incident on the 11th, but praised the way his team handled the spectators.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not aware of that,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you know, I was definitely proud of the guys, how they handled the situation, a tough environment out there.\u201d<\/p>\n
USA captain Keegan Bradley insisted he was \u2018sticking to the plan\u2019 and had confidence in his team to bounce back after a tough opening day for the home side.<\/p>\n
Tee times for the first session of the second day of 45th Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black, New York, on Saturday, September 27:<\/p>\n
Foursomes (USA names first, all times BST):<\/p>\n
12:10 Bryson DeChambeau and Cameron Young v Matt Fitzpatrick and Ludvig Aberg<\/p>\n
12:26 Harris English and Collin Morikawa v Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood<\/p>\n
12:42 Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay v Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton<\/p>\n
12:58 Russell Henley and Scottie Scheffler v Robert MacIntyre and Viktor Hovland<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luke Donald\u2019s side led the United States 5.5-2.5 after a memorable Friday at Bethpage Black where McIlroy was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[18,19,17,5948,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-88495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-ryder-cup","12":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}