FARMINGDALE, N.Y. As Bryson DeChambeau and Cam Young approached the 13th green, the chant started up in the nearby grandstand U-S-A! U-S-A! And yet, even with the United States strongest pairing of the morning striding up with a 3-up lead, the chant died after just a few low-effort repetitions.
Thats it? someone groaned in disbelief.
Thats it. For both the chant and the team its failing to inspire.
For the third straight session in the 2025 Ryder Cup, Europe mollywhomped the Americans, taking three of four matches and establishing a pretty-much-impregnable 8½ – 3½ lead. This was devastation, pure and simple, a ransacking that will leave the United States searching for answers in the last two sessions, and for a long time after that, too.
There will be analyses autopsies, really of this Ryder Cup in the hours, days and months ahead. To many observers, though, this Ryder Cup might have been lost before it even began or, certainly, on Friday night. That was when American captain Keegan Bradley revealed that he had a plan in place for the days pairings and that he wouldnt be deviating from the plan, even though his pairings got absolutely boat-raced on Friday.
The most debatable of Bradleys decisions: pairing Harris English and Collin Morikawa. DataGolf analysis suggested prior to this Ryder Cup that English/Morikawa was the 132nd best pairing of 132 possible pairings in other words, the worst possible. Technically, DataGolf measured the players individual performance, not how they would play together, but the point remains: this wasnt an ideal statistical pairing.
Proving the stat nerds right, Europe in the form of Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood elbow-dropped English/Morikawa 5&4 in Friday morning foursomes. And then Bradley turned around and ran out the exact same pairing against as it turned out the exact same European pairing.
We have a plan of what we’re going to do, Bradley said Friday night. We’re really comfortable with our plan. We’re really comfortable with those two players.
Perhaps so. But English and Morikawa didnt look particularly comfortable themselves, and quickly went four down in eight holes. English and Morikawa didnt win a single hole until the 14th, and by then it was far too late.
Elsewhere on the course, Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton jumped out early, let Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay back into the match by the 7th, and then inexorably strangled the life out of the American side. In the final match, Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley tied the match as late as the 13th hole, but missed opportunity after opportunity to pull ahead. And since Europe doesnt miss opportunities, Robert MacIntyre and Viktor Hovland eked out a one-hole win.
Europes five-point lead matches the largest-ever lead by a road team in the modern Ryder Cup era. Europe also held that lead in 1987, and went on to win 15-13. The grim math of Ryder Cup scoreboards means that its miles easier to defend a huge lead than to close one.
Being realistic, the only real way the United States can get back into this is with a 4-0 sweep of the afternoon matches. Virtually anything less Europe needs just 5½ points to retain the Cup and the gap remains massive heading into Sunday singles. And given how poorly most of the U.S. team has performed in team match play, is there any reason to believe theyll do any better riding solo?
All thats left now are the European chants of joy. And those arent going to die out, not the rest of this weekend and not for years to come.