Ryder Cup 2014: Match results, live updates, and scores from Saturday at Gleneagles

The USA will need a miracle on Sunday to win the 2014 Ryder Cup and we now know the lineup that will try to pull it off at Gleneagles. Down 10-6, Tom Watson’s group must win 8.5 of the available 12 points in Sunday singles in order to take away the Cup from Europe. The Euros only need 4 of the 12 points to retain the Cup.

When you’re trailing heading into Sunday singles, the typical strategy is to send your best players out early to try and get some momentum for a comeback going, generating hope for your side and panic and pressure on the frontrunner’s players at the end. For Tom Watson, his best players this week have been his rookies, particularly the two-man team of Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed. Those two will get the honor right out of the gate. It should be fairly obvious that their matches are critical to any longshot hopes of the Americans winning. If they lose, or even halve their matches, this will be over in a the first few hours on Sunday.

For the second straight day, it got ugly for the Americans in the afternoon during alternate-shot foursomes. Europe took 3.5 of a possible 4 points again and now head to Sunday singles with a huge 10-6 lead. They were the favorites and expected to win at home, but the afternoon session was still extremely frustrating and deflating for the American side. Here some lowlights and reasons why.

After another whitewash foursomes session, there will be questions about Tom Watson’s lineup management. It wasn’t as egregious as sitting Jordan Spieth and Patrick Reed on Friday, but the most surprising move was leaving Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley on the bench for the entire day. We knew Phil needed a rest and took himself out of morning four-ball, but this was the first time in his 20-year career in both the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup that he sat out back-to-back sessions.

This is one of those rare instances in a match where nobody has to take their putter out of the bag.

Victor Dubuisson and Graeme McDowell are crushing the exhausted American duo of Jimmy Walker and Rickie Fowler. They’re 5-up through nine holes and it looked like it was headed to a 6-up advantage when Dubuisson stuffed one just over a foot from the hole at the par-3 10th.

The wind was down at Gleneagles for Saturday morning Ryder Cup four-ball, and these world class players started pouring in birdies on every hole. The USA won the session and cut their deficit from two points to one point. Europe will begin Saturday afternoon’s foursomes session with s 6.5 to 5.5 advantage. It was the format they dominated on day 1 to build their lead, but the USA may have swung some momentum with their response Saturday morning. Here are some of the highlights of those four matches.

The Justin Rose/Henrik Stenson 3&2 win over Matt Kuchar/Bubba Watson was one of the best matches in Ryder Cup history. It only went 16 holes, but of the 32 potential scores between the two teams, 21 were birdies. The four-ball total of 21-under was a Ryder Cup record, and the two teams did it with two holes to spare.

The pairings are out for Saturday afternoon’s foursomes at the Ryder Cup, and with one match still out on the course from the morning, the best the USA can hope for is a 6-6 tie at the start of the final two-man session. It’s more likely they will be trailing by a point heading into the format where they were wiped out on Friday.

The biggest news coming out of the foursomes announcements is that Tom Watson is sitting the duo of Keegan Bradley and Phil Mickelson for the second straight day. That was the USA side’s most valuable two-man team in 2012 at Medinah, and they beat the powerhouse pairing of Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy on Friday morning. But they looked worn down in the afternoon. They should certainly be well-rested for Sunday singles after sitting an entire day -- something that seemed unfathomable at the start of the week.

Hunter Mahan just made an eagle in a match where the US has not lost a hole. His caddie, John Wood, is very happy about that eagle. Fluff ain’t got time for it, though.

On the course, Matt Kuchar rarely reacts or gets emotional about anything. So this putter flip after be bombed in a putt on the 15th green was just perfect.

That effort, unfortunately, was only good for a halve of the hole. Kuchar and Bubba Watson are currently on the wrong end of one of the best Ryder Cup runs in the history of the event. Justin Rose is unconscious with his putter, and Henrik Stenson is sticking his approach shots. Stenson’s iron shot into that green landed just a foot or two from the hole so the Euros didn’t even need to putt. It was their 10th STRAIGHT birdie, and yet they’re only 2-up on the American side which has made eight birdies in 15 holes.

The Rickie Fowler and Jimmy Walker pairing continue to be the USA’s most consistent duo, but they’re up against European heroes Rory McIlroy and Ian Poulter. It’s a huge ask to pick off that pair, but they have pulled things all square thanks to two straight holes won. The first came on this hole-out from the bunker by Fowler, who has stepped it up on day 2.

This match is quickly looking like the different between a USA win or a split of the morning session.

The leadoff match of Saturday’s four-ball session is one of the best matches you will ever see at the Ryder Cup. Granted, the wind is down and birdies are out there, but birdie has won or halved nine of the first 13 holes. Justin Rose has drained six birdies in a row and is 8-under on his own through 13 holes.

It’s also been the best match for both awkward and humorous celebrations. But no reaction will top Rose’s wink at opponent Bubba Watson after both drained lengthy birdies at the fifth hole.

The best player for Europe at this Ryder Cup has been Justin Rose, and by a good margin. The Euro team is loaded with world class players, many of whom have dominated the USA for winning records, but I wrote earlier in the week that none was scarier for American prospects than Rose.

He’s been bombing in putts through all three sessions so far, and he’s especially amped up Saturday morning. He hit a huge putt to halve the eighth hole, and spent a good five seconds preening for the crowd and pumping them up on his way to the cup. Even when it’s his partner making the putt, Rose is the one doing the celebrating -- and the TV cameras can’t get enough of it. A brief montage of just some of Rose’s work Saturday morning:

This is one of the rare golf events that the pros play for their country, so it’s not unusual for the American side to wear outfits with plenty of red, white, and blue. It’s not required, but it’s usual a part of at least one outfit.

This year’s uniforms, however, haven’t been too subtle -- especially the Saturday sweaters, which we first noticed as soon as Jordan Spieth popped up on the range looking cold and miserable.

Having Michael Jordan inside the ropes is a Ryder Cup tradition at this point. Jordan typically starts each session posted up on the first tee, and then he’s seen patrolling the fairways and zipping around in a golf cart all day. And he always, always has his cigar. Even at 7 a.m. in Scotland.

This is Jordan’s look every time he’s on a golf course, but I was still impressed to see him stand there with it for an interview as the sun was still coming up at Gleneagles. While this may have been more impressive, it certainly wasn’t the coolest photo of Jordan puffing on his cigar this week.

Nick Faldo might take a mulligan on calling Sergio Garcia “useless” in the 2008 Ryder Cup, but the captain of that European team stands by the criticism he leveled at the Spaniard during Friday’s opening round at Gleneagles.

Faldo, in his role as Golf Channel analyst, sparked a firestorm of outrage among Euro team members when he took issue with colleague Terry Gannon’s characterization of Garcia’s Ryder Cup play as “spectacular.” As the owner of a 16-8-4 Ryder Cup record teed off with Rory McIlroy in their morning fourball match, Faldo kind of agreed, but with one notable caveat.

It is cold, very cold at Gleneagles on Saturday morning. With the tee times just after dawn, many of the players arrive at the range before the sun is even up. Lee Westwood looked particularly chilly as he walked up to the practice area.

We’ve seen several of the Euros wearing those mittens this week, but none looked as miserably cold as Mr. Westwood.

Bubba Watson was undeterred from Friday’s disastrous blowout loss to start the Ryder Cup. So he stepped up to the first tee again, and again requested that the Scotland crowd cheer through his entire first swing.

Watson put this one in the middle of the fairway, but followed it up with an awful wedge approach shot short of the green.

The opening tee atmosphere is a relatively new tradition at the Ryder Cup. The Cup organizers on both sides of the Atlantic have done their best to build horseshoe grandstands around the first tee and pack the partisan crowds all around the tiny tee box.

This year’s first tee is especially cool because they built a “tunnel” entrance, as comparable as golf can get to the entrance at a college football or basketball came. Henrik Stenson and Justin Rose were the first home pair to hit the tee on Friday, and the Ryder Cup documenting the walk out of the tunnel with this video.