European golf’s newest rivalry kicked off with Great Britain & Ireland taking an early lead over Continental Europe at Abu Dhabi’s Team Cup. After day one, they’re up 3½-1½ in what’s shaping up to be an exciting preview of potential Ryder Cup talent.
The unlikely duo of Tyrrell Hatton and Tom McKibbin proved to be a winning combination. It’s an interesting pairing – Hatton’s already with LIV Golf, while there’s buzz that McKibbin might be heading that way too. They handled France’s Antoine Rozner and Julien Guerrier pretty easily, winning 3 and 2.
Name
Events
Top 10
Money
Justin Rose
427
112
$64,878,042
Tommy Fleetwood and Aaron Rai didn’t mess around either. They took down the Italian pair of Francesco Molinari and Matteo Manassero 4 and 2, showing no mercy to Molinari, who’s actually captaining the Continental Europe team.
That’s got to sting for Molinari, whose team won this tournament last year when it was called the Hero Cup.
Only two matches went down to the wire on Friday. Jordan Smith and Laurie Canter squeezed out a nail-biting win over Danish duo Rasmus Hojgaard and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen. Meanwhile, Thorbjorn Olesen and Niklas Norgaard saved some pride for Continental Europe by forcing a tie against Matthew Jordan and Paul Waring.
The Continental team’s only full point came from French pair Matthieu Pavon and Romain Langasque, who topped British captain Justin Rose and Matt Wallace 3 and 1.
This tournament’s got quite a history. It used to be called The Seve Trophy and ran from 2000-13, with the British and Irish team dominating six of those eight matches.
It’s turned out to be a pretty good predictor of Ryder Cup talent too. Just last year, six players from this event ended up making it to Rome, where Europe took back the cup from the Americans.
Next stop for Europe’s best? They’ll be heading to New York’s Bethpage Black this September for what promises to be an intense Ryder Cup showdown.
