Ryder Cup analysis: Six notes on the second day as Europe close in on victory over USA

Donald sees chance, takes chance

Luke Donald did not intend to use Rasmus Hojgaard only twice this week, not even after the Dane had lost heavily on Friday evening, especially not considering the fact that he actually played quite well with a partner who unfortunately did not.

But Donald saw the opportunity to go in for the kill on Saturday, recognising two crucial truths: Europe winning the fourth session would all but end the contest, and by the time it began the crowds would be getting out of control. He may not have had to think for very long about whether or not to protect Hojgaard from that and to hope that he can do as Thorbjorn Olesen did in Paris and respond with a singles point.

That's the sort of rational thinking which is easy for a leading captain to justify whatever the outcome, particularly one with a Ryder Cup already in the bag. Meanwhile, opposite number Keegan Bradley saw something different: defeat, staring right at him, and therefore no decision to be made. He had to rip it all up, start again, and hope that pairing Scottie Scheffler with Bryson DeChambeau would spark something.

It has been a curious week for both. DeChambeau played very well in game one and lost, quite well on Friday evening and lost, then poorly on Saturday and won. No wonder he was so keen to make amends for his earlier failure to talk like one half of a team when he'd got off the mark thanks largely to Cameron Young's brilliant display.

Scheffler meanwhile has been a long way from his best, but by no means among the worst US performers. He ranked third, fourth and second among the US players across those first three sessions, which granted different draws might've meant for a very different record. But let's not absolve him as a victim of the format's randomness. When his team needed him, he produced shots we seldom see.

He's not been that bad, but he's been nowhere near good enough.

Rose blooms

If Europe go on to complete the job, Donald will go down in history, right behind Seve Ballesteros as one of the best, most successful, most influential forces in blue and gold. His playing record was outrageously good and if his side avoids disaster, he'll have been involved in six Ryder Cups, winning each of them.

More on him tomorrow, I hope, but for now let's focus on Justin Rose and another mind-boggling display of grit and skill. How does he keep doing it? It's not so much his age – Rose is a fit and firing 45-year-old with plenty still to offer – more the fact that he does quite often play mediocre golf, way below the levels set when he reached number one in the world.

And yet, year after year, when he really wants to, when it really matters, he produces something spectacular. In this case, he was the shining light as he and Tommy Fleetwood went out in 27 shots. Rose's stats were incredible, and the thing is they had to be.

Nothing better sums up how dreamlike this week has been for Europe than the fact that Bradley's decision to pair Scheffler and DeChambeau kind of worked – both played really well. And yet Rose, almost on his own, swatted them aside, the final flourish coming at the 15th where he asked DeChambeau's caddie to get out of his way, then found the middle of the hole yet again, something which has the knock-on of revealing the very worst of DeChambeau, who is not used to not getting what he wants.

At the very next hole, while DeChambeau sulked and then played three poor shots, Rose fittingly ended the match with a par.

Legendary stuff from a future knight and whatever you or I might think about that particular quirk of Britishness, Rose will not only deserve it, he'll relish it. What a man.

Everything gets a bit sweary

Prior to the Ryder Cup, Rory McIlroy admitted that somebody on Team Europe would react to the inevitable abuse that was coming from the New York crowds. On Saturday morning, that someone was him.

In typically McIlroy fashion, after stepping off a shot to bark 'shut the f*** up' at a spectator, he returned to his ball, under pressure following a rare good approach from the opposition, and hit it stiff. He went on to win the match alongside Tommy Fleetwood and remain unbeaten for the week.

"Give us the respect to let us hit shots," he later told reporters. McIlroy said he has no issue with pretty much anything anyone can say to him between shots but feels, rightly, that everyone should do as instructed and, ahem, shut up, when any player is about to hit. That feels like a given, yet here we are.

Later, Sky Sports reporter Jamie Weir revealed an interesting bit of insight from 2023 Ryder Cup player Nicolai Hojgaard. He said that negative crowd energy is hard to feed off, even for the home side; the suggestion being that this version of raucousness, while clearly getting to some of the Europeans, was not likely to spur on the USA. It certainly didn't look like it was helping.

That all came soon after Shane Lowry had responded similarly to McIlroy when holing an eagle putt to win the fourth hole and put them in command of their match as things got, well, a bit nasty. Who can blame the players for reacting. I don't know exactly what was said but, based on some of the comments of 2016 and the trajectory of behaviour since, it is not at all difficult to imagine that a line was crossed – and not by McIlroy.

At the sixth hole, McIlroy backed off a putt as yet another idiot yelled out as he was about to hit it. This was pathetic, self-defeating behaviour from people who, while entitled to be partisan, should've been able to realise that the very least you can do in the presence of great golfers is, as one of them put it, shut the f*** up, and perhaps have a glance at the score while doing so.

If it isn't natural, it doesn't work

Before Europe went about the altogether too straightforward processing of making it three sessions out of three, shared a video of the crowds around the first tee receiving a cringeworthy lesson in how, apparently, to chant. The idea was We Will Rock You (by the famously British band, Queen, but whatever) only with the words changed to Scottie, Scottie Scheffler.

As if the golf itself wasn't embarrassing enough.

Here's the thing: you can't artificially cultivate this. Yes, the Europeans have had that group dressed in yellow and blue, whatever they're called, singing their prepared songs, but they're seen as either a bit of fun or an aggravation depending on your point of view. It's not serious, because... well how can it be? Step back for a moment: this is crowd chanting at a golf tournament. If it's serious, it's wrong.

To the credit of those in the stands, they did at least seem to find the whole affair just as skin-crawlingly awful as those of us made to shiver from thousands of miles away. Let this be the first and last time anyone tries that sort of nonsense.

Thomas lives up to the moment

Credit to Justin Thomas for finding the sweet spot, encouraging fans to make as much noise as possible between shots, and then as little noise as possible when his opponents were about to hit. He's not everyone's cup of tea, the type of character who can be extremely annoying when he's playing against you, but as the senior American in the match which almost boiled over, he stood up and did the right thing.

He also started to play well when his team desperately needed him to, which was a nice turnaround for a player subjected to so much criticism in Rome, despite having done many good things for this side since his debut in Paris. Thomas might be the closest thing the USA has to Ian Poulter, certainly now that Patrick Reed is out of favour, and he excelled himself on Saturday evening, with and without club in hand.

No longer just the cheerleader

Finally, a word on Shane Lowry. What a class performance he put in on Saturday afternoon, even if the match itself became scrappy at times as energy was expended elsewhere.

Back in April, when Lowry finished a disappointing third round at Augusta, he bristled at being asked about his close friend McIlroy and his quest for the grand slam. Lowry quite rightly wanted to point out that he's a professional golfer trying to win the Masters. Being asked about his brilliant teammate has a time and a place and this just wasn't quite it.

Fast forward five months and there was a similar feel to their Friday post-round interview. Lowry knew that McIlroy had carried him, and it was a bit awkward to have the television presenter talk instead about his presence in the team room. This isn't a vice-captain, this is a player desperate to contribute in a meaningful way, and to be talked about as an effective spectator, while not unreasonable, must've hurt.

So Lowry will take enormous pleasure, I'd say as much as he's found on a golf course since 2019, from the way he stood up in the fourballs. It was he who eagled the fourth, it was he who birdied the fifth, it was he who birdied the sixth. And then, under pressure, it was he who birdied the 15th to keep Europe ahead, it was he who birdied 17 when the USA had already had theirs conceded, and it was he who fired another dart into 18.

Now, at last, it was his turn to prop up McIlroy in a partnership which hadn't worked in 2021.

McIlroy completed a childhood dream when he won the Masters for the career grand slam. Deep down, Lowry knows he's never going to reach those particular heights. I'd say he completed a childhood dream of his own here.