You may think that the first few points out of a competition with 28 total points up for grabs do not matter much. That it’s just the first quarter of an NBA game. The teams are feeling each other out, trying to set a pace, and then really start to play in the second half as the minutes dwindle.
Ryder Cup 2018: Tee times, schedule, TV/live stream info for Friday
The two-year wait between Ryder Cups can be interminable. But at long last, the first day of matches has arrived in Paris.
The Ryder Cup, however, is often the opposite. Golf Channel has cited all week that the winners of 13 of the last 19 Ryder Cups took that first point. Not just the first session, but that very first point. The session of four matches is critical. Losing a session, especially right off the top, is demoralizing and deflating and just keeps making the margin for error smaller in a competition where there’s almost no margins between the very best in the world.
So this first session matters more than you’d expect for the overall Cup and the pressure of that first session? It’s at its very highest. Players from all generations and of all accomplishment levels — Hall of Famers to one-time participants — will tell that there is nothing in golf like the pressure you feel on the first tee of the Ryder Cup.
The time is now. Here’s why the USA will end its 25-year drought in Europe.
Photo by Andrew Redington/Getty Images
Some have said they couldn’t feel their arms and legs and just subconsciously made a swing to get the ball off the tee. We saw Webb Simpson pop one up to start the Ryder Cup’s first match the last time it was in Europe in 2014. Playing for someone else — a team, a partner, a country — adds a level of suffocating pressure that’s beyond any putt at the Masters. This is what the Ryder Cup veterans tell you time and again.
The lineup for the opening session, which will feature the four-ball format (also known as best ball), is loaded with rookies playing in their first Ryder Cup. So they will be thrown into the cauldron of that first tee scene, which is the biggest its ever been for this event with some 12,000 crowded around one tee box alone. There is a rookie in every single pairing that European captain Thomas Bjorn is sending out Friday morning. Alex Noren is the only rookie sitting out the first session and Bryson DeChambeau is the one rookie of the three American first-timers starting on the bench.
Here’s your lineup for Friday morning four-ball — all times ET (Paris is six hours ahead)
2:10 a.m.: Brooks Koepka & Tony Finau (USA) vs. Justin Rose & Jon Rahm (EUR)
2:25 a.m.: Dustin Johnson & Rickie Fowler (USA) vs. Rory McIlroy & Thorbjorn Olesen (EUR)
2:40 a.m.: Jordan Spieth & Justin Thomas (USA) vs. Paul Casey & Tyrrell Hatton (EUR)
2:55 a.m.: Patrick Reed & Tiger Woods (USA) vs. Francesco Molinari & Tommy Fleetwood (EUR)
It’s a fascinating play by Bjorn, who is keeping two of Europe’s emotional leaders and Ryder Cup legends, Sergio Garcia and Ian Poulter, on the bench for the critical first session (more reactions to the first session lineup and what it might mean for the afternoon four-ball here).
Golf Channel will have the full coverage of the opening day’s double session, going live at 2 a.m. ET on Friday morning. If you’re on the west coast, I think the play is to power through the evening with those first matches starting at 11 p.m. PST.
Golf Channel, which falls under the NBC and Comcast umbrella, has become the traditional broadcaster of this thing. We’ll get the usual NBC suspects in Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller, but the Golf Channel side of things will probably feature a lot of Terry Gannon and Nick Faldo up in the booth.
This broadcast is not as long as their British Open coverage, which runs some 14.5 hours from the very first tee shot around 1:30 a.m. ET. But it’s still a long ass day for any TV broadcast, going 11 hours across two sessions of matches. Here are your coverage options for the first day:
Friday’s Day 1 coverage
Television:
2 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET -- Golf Channel
Streaming:
2 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET -- Golf Channel simulcast stream
Other streaming options
FuboTV from 2 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET
Ryder Cup App’s “Ryder Cup Live” from 2 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET
Radio:
2 a.m. until completion of play -- PGA Tour Radio on Sirius-XM (Ch. 93/208)
Ryder Cup Apps will also have “Live Radio” feature during match play
