ROME – There has been a lot of noise in American ears this week.
A boisterous home crowd.
Criticism.
Reports.
But on Saturday evening, the U.S. Ryder Cup Team finally found the spark they’d been clamouring for all week to give itself life heading into Sunday singles.
The Americans took the final four-ball session 3-1 to claw back to within five points of a European side that has been making history for two days now. Sam Burns and Collin Morikawa, a combined 0-3 through three sessions, took down Europe’s hottest pairing for the first point. Max Homa and Brian Harman capped off a 2-0 day as a partnership. And Patrick Cantlay, the man who has been the biggest target of the European fans thanks in part to a report that suggested Cantlay was going hatless for reasons beyond showing off his hair, capped off the rally by draining a 40-foot birdie to pull the ledger to 10½-5½, still in favour of Europe.
As Cantlay's putt dropped, he exploded in emotion – and then playfully tipped his imaginary cap.
After being showered all day with hordes of home fans waving their hats, Cantlay actually birdied each of his final three holes, and when Rory McIlroy couldn’t match at the last, it not only sealed the 1 UP win for Cantlay and Wyndham Clark but ensured Cantlay the hero of the evening – for the American fans at least. As Cantlay headed toward the interview room among a chorus of chirps and boos, several of his teammates patted him on the back while Harman slung his arm around his teammate.
“I've never had so many standing ovations going to tee boxes and greens,” Cantlay said with a big smile. “I thought it was fantastic. You know, I told Wyndham when we were going to the first tee today that we were going to use all the energy out there as fuel, and we did."
They weren’t the only ones.
Burns certainly fed off the critics. They didn’t believe he belonged here. They were bothered by his hair. They thought he should be benched until Sunday after his opening foursomes performance as Scottie Scheffler’s partner.
Finally, Burns had had enough. After rolling in a short birdie putt at the par four sixth to put he and Morikawa 3 UP in their four-ball match opposite red-hot Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Åberg, Burns turned to the crowd, raised his left hand to his ear, then both hands to both ears, and shouted, over and over, “I can’t hear you!”
Sure, this kind of energy could’ve come earlier from the U.S. squad. But if the Americans were to claw back into this 44th Ryder Cup, Burns couldn’t not try and inject some life into his side.
And it worked.
“We knew it was going to be tough,” Burns said. “We knew the crowds were going to be against us. We just kept fighting.”
Burns and Morikawa combined for five birdies and an eagle to deliver a surprising 4-and-3 win over a European pair that had just hours earlier won a foursomes match 9 and 7 to set an 18-hole record for margin of victory.
“We know where we stand, and we know what we've done so far and in the past, you know, kind of first sessions, but we were leading,” Morikawa said. “At the start, seeing red on that first hole was very important for us.”
That leadoff point merely put a dent in Europe’s huge lead, but it also set the table.
Homa, who had chipped in earlier in the morning to seal the Americans’ first full point of the week, stayed teamed with Harman for the afternoon four-balls. Homa holed another chip to earn a crucial split of the par four 15th hole, and he and Harman held on for the 2&1 victory over Tommy Fleetwood and Nicolai Højgaard.
A Ryder Cup rookie, Homa leads the U.S. with 2½ points this week. Harman has won two matches. Burns, Morikawa, Cantlay and Clark are the other Americans to have won a match through four sessions. That means that the likes of Scheffler, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Brooks Koepka, Xander Schauffele are winless.
But as the Americans keep reiterating, they win and lose as a team, and despite what has been reported, that this U.S. squad is "fractured" and Cantlay is sans hat out of protest for not being paid, this is a close group.
“We love each other, man,” Harman said in coming to Cantlay’s defense.
Cantlay also refuted the report, saying, "It's not about that. It's just about Team USA and representing our country," while U.S. Captain Zach Johnson told reporters, "The facts are he doesn't like the fit of the hats."
“There is not a rift in this team room," Johnson added.
And now the Americans must come together again to pull off something that hasn’t been done before. Twice have teams rallied from four points back entering singles to win the Cup – the U.S. in 1999 at Brookline, and Europe in 2012 at Medinah. Five points? That’s a different story.
But it doesn’t make it impossible.
“We've all just been trying to put as many points on the board as we can,” Homa said. “… Every one of us knows we can go out there and get a point tomorrow. So, I think that's all that's on our mind.”
Not boos.
Not critics.
Not even hats.
