Hosts Europe swept to their equal best opening day in Ryder Cup history, winning both the morning and afternoon session over the United States for a 6-1/2 to 1-1/2 scoreline at the Marco Simone Golf Club in Rome on Friday.
Europe's five-point advantage on the first day matched the lead they had posted 19 years ago, in 2004, and Luke Donald's men need another eight points over the final two days – from 20 matches in all – to regain the trophy they lost in a comprehensive 19-9 thrashing at Whistling Straits in the US two years ago.
“It was a historic day, but we want it to be a historic week,” Europe captain Donald said later.
“Those putts by Viktor, Jon and Rosie make a huge difference,” Donald told the BBC.
“It was sensational, a dream start for us. This morning was an amazing performance by the guys and this afternoon was tough. The US came back, we knew they would. They had a stretch there in the middle where the momentum was turning their way but man, did we turn it back.”
After a 4-0 rout in the morning’s foursomes, the Americans looked to be fighting back in the second session’s fourballs matches, only to see Europe ride some nerveless putting from Jon Rahm, Justin Rose and Viktor Hovland that converted three possible victories into shared points with all three matches halved.
Rahm dropped a 33-foot putt for eagle on the closing hole after an earlier eagle had set him and Ryder Cup rookie Nicolai Hojgaard on their way against world number one Scottie Scheffler and partner Brooks Koepka.
In the afternoon’s top match alongside Tyrrel Hatton, Hovland dropped a sensational final-hole birdie to snatch a half-point against Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, who had been left out of the morning’s fourball session by US captain Zach Johnson.
Matt Fitzpatrick and Rory McIlroy combined to sink Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele 5&3 in a one-sided hammering in the last pairing that actually was the first to finish. It was the Englishman’s first point of his Ryder Cup career, while Rahm finished in style to continue his unbeaten start to the 2023 encounter.
The burly Spaniard chipped in to eagle the 16th and bounced back from losing the next to a Scheffler birdie by holing a 35-footer for his second eagle in three holes on the par-five 18th.
The afternoon’s third match also went down to the wire, with Rose winning the final two holes to snatch another half-point for Europe partnering Robert MacIntyre against Max Homa and Wyndham Clark.
It was a measure of their somewhat unexpected dominance that every one of the 12 players fielded by Europe captain Luke Donald came away with at least a half-point on the opening day.
The 2.5-1.5 reversal in the afternoon also meant that USA had failed to win even one of the opening eight matches on an unexpected Friday.
In the morning, it was Europe all the way with Rahm and Hatton routing Scheffler and Sam Burns 4&3, Hovland and Swedish rookie Ludvig Aberg beating Max Homa and Open champion Brian Harman by the same margin.
The third and fourth matches both ended with 2&1 scorelines for Europe, Shane Lowry and Sepp Straka getting the better of Rickie Fowler and Morikawa, and McIlroy teaming up with Tommy Fleetwood (the duo quickly being renamed Fleetwood Mac) to sink Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay.