FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — No. 1 in the world is 0-2 at this Ryder Cup, and Scottie Scheffler had the worst first day by a top-ranked player at the biennial matches between Europe and the United States since Tiger Woods two decades ago.
Scheffler lost again in foursomes — and as always in that format at the Ryder Cup, lost badly — in the morning with Russell Henley, then went back out with U.S. Open champion J.J. Spaun for a loss in fourballs in the afternoon at Bethpage Black.
By himself, Scheffler is winning more often than anyone in golf. The 29-year-old Texan’s teams were behind for almost the entirety of both of his matches Friday, though, and with Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau — the two biggest stars on the U.S. roster — both going 0-2, the Americans trailed Europe 5 1/2 to 2 1/2 overall at the three-day event.
Europe needs 14 points to retain the trophy, while the U.S. needs 14 1/2 to reclaim it, and there’s still time for Scheffler to be part of any potential turnaround on home turf.
“When you’re the No. 1 player in the world, you have a day that maybe it wasn’t his best, normally you bounce back,” U.S. captain Keegan Bradley said. “We are not worried about Scottie Scheffler.”
The four-time major champion finally seemed to find his game late in the afternoon match, making three birdies in the final four holes played. However, he didn’t have any until the 13th hole as Spain’s Jon Rahm and Austria’s Sepp Straka built a comfortable lead, and the European duo went on to a 3-and-2 victory.
“We gave ourselves plenty of opportunities,” Scheffler said. “It really just came down to me not holing enough putts. We put up a good fight at the end.”
He fell to 0-4-2 in his past six Ryder Cup matches, becoming the first No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Ranking to go 0-2 on the opening day since Woods in 2002. Woods, the 15-time major champion with a record-tying 82 PGA Tour victories also did that in 1999. Ian Woosnam of Wales in 1991 is the only other top-ranked player to do it.
Scheffler and Henley were defeated 5 and 3 by Sweden’s Ludvig Aberg and England’s Matt Fitzpatrick in the morning. It marked Scheffler’s third blowout loss in three career foursome matches in the Ryder Cup.
Two years after being left in tears when Aberg and Norway’s Viktor Hovland routed Scheffler and Brooks Koepka 9 and 7 at Italy’s Marco Simone in the shortest foursomes match in Ryder Cup history, Scheffler watched Aberg and Fitzpatrick make seven birdies in 15 holes.
Scheffler has trailed by at least four holes in all three of his Ryder Cup foursomes matches. He and Henley are paired again for Saturday morning’s final foursomes match against Hovland and Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre. There’s another fourballs session in the afternoon, and Sunday’s 12 singles matches wrap up the event on Long Island.
Scheffler’s afternoon match swung when he missed a good birdie chance on No. 8. He and Spaun were 1 down, and Scheffler hit his tee shot on the par 3 to about eight feet from the cup. Rahm made his putt from about twice as long and Scheffler missed, turning the U.S. hopes of evening the match into a 2-up lead for Europe.
Rahm and Straka would never let the Americans back into it, making five birdies in the final six holes.
“The guys just really turned it on on the back nine,” Scheffler said of Rahm and Straka, “but it really came down to us not taking advantage of the holes early in the match that we needed to. But overall it was a good fight at the end, and we’ll come back out tomorrow.”
Scheffler has won six times this year — four more than anyone else on the PGA Tour — including major championships at the British Open and the PGA Championship as the two-time Masters winner moved within a U.S. Open triumph of the career Grand Slam. He has played himself back into tournaments after slow starts before, and maybe his performance on the final few holes gives him some momentum going into the weekend.
Bradley sent Henley and Scheffler out second Friday morning, after DeChambeau and Justin Thomas. While the leadoff duo was the high-profile match of the morning, the one after might have appeared to be the best U.S. duo.
Henley is No. 3 in the world, and he and Scheffler went 2-1 together last year in the Presidents Cup in Montreal, where the Americans posted their latest victory against an international team that doesn’t include players from Europe.
Scheffler pumped his fist after rolling in a birdie putt on No. 2 to quickly tie the morning foursomes match after Aberg and Fitzpatrick had won the first hole, but there wouldn’t be much more to celebrate for the Americans. The Europeans ran off three straight birdies to win Nos. 4-6 and build a 3-up lead that ballooned to 5 up, then won it when the U.S. made a bogey on No. 15.
“They played great, gave themselves a lot of chances,” Henley said of Aberg and Fitzpatrick before calling his own play “a little sloppy” and adding that he “didn’t make the putts I needed to and didn’t really keep the momentum going with the ball striking on the back nine, either. Hung in there as best I could, but they played great.”
Scheffler also lost 4 and 3 with Sam Burns against Rahm and England’s Tyrrell Hatton in his other foursomes match in 2023, when he went 0-2-2. He didn’t play in either foursomes session in his Ryder Cup debut in 2021, when he went 2-0-1 and the U.S. beat Europe at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits.