Ryder Cup 2016: Leaderboard, live coverage, results and more from Sunday’s matches

If Patrick Reed is not on the field for every single Ryder Cup going forward, then the U.S. had better convene another task force to determine why. Reed may have ticked off his share of golfers and other folks in college and during the early years of his career. But the passionate, 26-year-old Texan certainly won a truckload of enthusiasts with his fiery temperament two years ago at Gleneagles. He brought it stateside for the home fans last week at Hazeltine, where he was instrumental in returning the Cup to the U.S. for the first time since 2008.

How many times have golf fans anticipated the match of the century when two heavyweights go toe-to-toe in a major or even a regular-season tournament (see: Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods-Rory McIlroy, Rory-Jordan Spieth, etc.)? Well, the McIlroy-Reed pairing in Sunday’s singles finale had everything all those others lacked: thrills, tension, finger-wagging, hollering, fist-pumping, and electrifying golf.

Rarely in sports does the marquee matchup that we are all pining for live up to the billing. Almost never does it exceed the hype. Patrick Reed vs. Rory McIlroy doesn’t belong in either of those categories, because hype doesn’t even begin to describe it.

The walk from the range to the first tee at Hazeltine is partially private, but anything from quiet. The tall bleachers behind the tee box protect the player’s view of the raucous scene, and the pathway leading to the stairs sits well below the actual teeing area. Unperturbed, legions of fans gathered outside the ropes to the right of the walkway with their sole intention being to rile up the U.S. players as they make their way to the golf’s most epic opening tee shot. They’re lined up at least 20 deep, with zero hope of seeing the teeing area that sits well above them. Yet they stand, and they wait.

This is not your father’s Ryder Cup and if that was unclear, a player Dikembe Mutombo finger wagging his opponent to his face should have made it apparent on Sunday afternoon at Hazeltine. This Ryder Cup may have had moments that make prior generations uncomfortable, but this weekend illustrated why it’s become the best and most exhilarating event in golf.

The 2016 Ryder Cup started with an opening ceremony speech by Jack Nicklaus and Tony Jacklin, the two main characters from one of the most famous Ryder Cup endings, “The Concession.” Nicklaus and Jacklin reminded us of the Ryder Cup mission and the virtues of the game, the goodwill between both sides, and the importance of sportsmanship. Nicklaus was asked about that ending recently and delivered the same sentiment from the opening ceremony speech, saying that the “competition was incidental” to all those grander concepts of international goodwill.

For only the second time this millennium, the United States won the Ryder Cup.

Here are 10 Extremely Good photos from the Ryder Cup celebration, ranked.

Golf fans get four major championships every year. But only once every two years do they get an opportunity to enjoy the stars of the game in the world’s premier team competition.

The Ryder Cup is here.

The Ryder Cup is the best event in golf for many reasons, and a big one is the winning team’s celebration. The usual inhibition to be good #brand partners and keep things safe is thrown out the window to celebrate in a way an NBA team might after winning the title. We saw this with Europe in 2014 in a big way, and the USA did its part during a hilarious post-win press conference.

The highlight probably came when a tuned up Dustin Johnson decided to just start popping bottles while others were speaking so they could keep the party going. Davis Love III also joined in, serving as a cue for Phil Mickelson to wind down his answers. It was incredibly entertaining and juuuuuuust a bit less tense than that unforgettable loser’s press conference of 2014.

The long wait is over. The Ryder Cup is coming home to America for the first time since 2008, and only the second time since 1999.

What do you do when you break that streak of tough Cup luck? Well...

For just the second time since 1999, the Ryder Cup is coming home to the United States. And, sure enough, it was the last player to make the American roster to clinch the title.

After barely inching onto the US roster as the final selection just one week ago, Ryan Moore won three consecutive holes for the Americans on the 16th, 17th, and 18th to vault the U.S. to its first title in the event since 2008. With a putt on the final hole to defeat Lee Westwood, Moore clinched victory.

Patrick Reed, who told vice captain Tiger Woods there was no way he was going to sit out any of the Ryder Cup matches, made the rookie vice captain look good when he outlasted Rory McIlroy in singles to put Team USA’s first point of Sunday’s finale in the win column.

In a much-hyped match between the two teams’ spiritual leaders, Reed finally shut McIlroy down, 1-up, to leave the U.S. with just four points needed to recapture the cup for the first time since 2008.

Rory McIlroy and Patrick Reed promised to be a singles matchup made in golf heaven, but the two Ryder Cup heavyweights are putting on a show for the ages out there at Hazeltine.

Slugging it out from the get-go, the boys are clubbing drives, making putts, yelling their lungs out, and offering what NBC Sports analyst Johnny Miller said, in an uncharacteristic understatement for the brash NBC analyst, “has the makings of the greatest match ever on television.”

In the world of golf, there aren’t many moments that draw celebration from the professionals while they’re busy focusing on the game at hand.

If anything, it’s usually a reaction of pure horror as a ball goes awry and ends up landing in the middle of a group of baby squirrels and the golfer is informed that they -- due to rules -- cannot take a drop or move the ball in any way. That, my friends, leads to a difficult shot. Believe me. I’ve been there. (Editor’s note: Sam can’t even golf, so this is obviously a lie.)

We’ve seen some awkward celebrations on the golf course over the years (Tiger Woods and Matt Kuchar’s doing the Fresh Prince at the 2013 Presidents Cup comes to mind), but Jordan Spieth may be the first player to injure himself in one of those dangerous, bash brother fetes.

Rumors made their way around the practice range at about 11 a.m. ET — little more than an hour before Spieth’s scheduled Sunday tee time with oft-injured Henrik Stenson — that Spieth would have to pull out of his singles match. Fortunately for the Americans, that bit of gossip proved untrue, but Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis reported that Spieth “tweaked a few of his fingers, kind of just sprained them just a little bit, nothing major.”

There is just one session left in the 2016 Ryder Cup and it’s the same setup that led to disaster the last time the Americans were closing in on a win on home soil. We’ll never forget that Sunday meltdown at Medinah, where the USA entered the singles session with a big 10-6 lead and proceeded to blow it to the Europeans. It was Team Europe’s largest comeback ever as each individual player picked off the Americans to make erase the margin and take the Cup for a second straight time.

This year, Europe is trying to take the Cup for a record fourth straight time. The USA has never lost four in a row and now they’re back in the same position with a sizable lead heading into Sunday singles. The U.S. is up three points, 9.5 to 6.5, and will need to finagle five out of the remaining 12 points to take the cup. Remember, if it is a 14-14 tie, the Europeans will retain the cup, so the USA has a bit more lifting to do on what is supposed to be a perfect Sunday in Minnesota.

Part of what makes the Ryder Cup so special is the waiting. It’s such a unique spectacle because we have to be patient, letting the hype and anticipation build over two years until we can watch the USA and Europe go at it again in the best team competition in golf. Well, now we are here. It’s Sunday at the Ryder Cup and either Europe will earn a record fourth straight win or the Americans will prove their task force overhaul of their process is working.

NBC will have the call of Sunday’s singles session, the one session heavily weighted with 12 of the event’s total 28 points on the line. There is no hiding the weak links on the roster. Everyone must play, and they must play without a partner head-to-head against a solo representative from their counterpart. The first match between Patrick Reed and Rory McIlroy will go just after Noon ET. The NBC broadcast will begin right at Noon, and they’ll have little to no time to set things up before Reed and Rory tee off four minutes later. From there, it’s a really fluid situation with no definitive and predictable end time.

The United States has controlled this Ryder since the opening session on Friday morning but now comes the decisive Sunday singles session. The first four sessions of two-man games are critical, but Sunday’s finale does dole out 12 of the possible 28 points in a Ryder Cup, allowing room for significant comebacks. We saw that last time this event was held on American soil in 2012, when the Euros pulled off their biggest comeback ever, erasing that 10-6 deficit in the Medinah Miracle to retain the cup.

The Euros will start this Sunday with a three-point deficit, the tally through the first four sessions sitting at 9.5 to 6.5. So this is far from over and we’ll know how things might be trending from those early matches. The captains’ consensus opinion is that, when you’re trailing, the best strategy is to put your strongest players out first. You hope the big guns at the top come through for you, put a few points up on the board and make it closer to start a roll of momentum down the match board and back to the weaker players. It’s how these Sunday singles always seem to work and this year is no different, with a dream matchup in the leadoff spot.

Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Jack Nicklaus may have strolled Hazeltine at the Ryder Cup on Saturday, but there was really no question who the alpha male was across the sloping Minnesota property. Rory McIlroy, in a way those sports icons often did, embraced the role of villainy, creating enemies, goading them, asking for an adversary, either imagined or real. Then he’d crush their hopes and dreams and dance on ‘em.

This day was max Rory, turned all the way up to 100 and in a way we’ve never seen from him. We know he runs hot, but the Ryder Cup is that rare opportunity to play as either a home or away team and he owned the adversarial moment. It has been a frustrating season at times for Rory. He was the lead dog in the game, then Jordan Spieth and Jason Day intervened last year. This year was supposed to be a re-ascendance to the throne, but the form that delivered back-to-back majors in 2014 just did not show up when he needed it most. There were aspects of his game that remained dominant, specifically his immense power off the tee. But either his putting or wedge game would go on him. He’d miss major cuts, break clubs, bristle in press conferences, and storm away looking as exasperated as ever. He was too good to be missing these opportunities.

The USA will take a three-point lead to the final day of the Ryder Cup, but as every American fan is well aware, that’s not exactly a safe margin. It’s a big lead for these matches, but the margin was four the last time this thing was on American soil, and we all know how that Medinah meltdown turned out in Chicago. Sunday is a monumental day, with 12 of the 28 available points coming in the singles session as each side goes one-on-one for the first time in the week. The two-man games are over and the USA needs five of the 12 points to take the cup from Europe.

Leading off the day’s session will be one of the epic matchups in Sunday singles history. There is no doubt who the emotional leader has been for each team. Patrick Reed has delivered over and over for the U.S. side, culminating with his dominant Saturday night fourball carrying of Jordan Spieth to that duo’s second win this week. On the other side will be Rory McIlroy, the alpha of this entire competition, who has been goading the crowd, embracing the heckles, and screaming at every grandstand he can as he pours in another putt and crushes American hopes and dreams.

Rory McIlroy has fed off the hoots and catcalls aimed at him from the hostile Ryder Cup fans for two days. Not only has he returned the compliment, with his own combative glares and shouts, but he and Thomas Pieters went 2-0 in Saturday’s two sessions and posted the Europeans’ only point of the afternoon.

Thanks to McIlroy, the U.S. did not shut out the Euros and Davis Love III’s crew will take a 9.5-6.5 edge into Sunday’s singles finale and hope to hang on. If Patrick Reed has anything to say about it, the Americans will strut and fist-pump their way to their first Ryder Cup victory since 2008 and put their 2012 meltdown at Medinah under DL3’s watchful eye behind them.