DP World Tour ; Hero Cup Leaderboard
Captain Francesco Molinari has called on his Continental Europe team to go out and win Sunday's singles session even though they go into the final day of the Hero Cup two points better off than Great Britain & Ireland.
Bob MacIntyre, Scotland.
Continental Europe lead 8.5-6.5 after winning Friday's four-ball session and Saturday afternoon's foursomes, while the other foursomes session was drawn.
***edit : With Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald in attendance, the European Tour as it was, rightly decided the Americans had the advantage of playing virtually the same team at both the Ryder Cup and the President's Cup while Europe only played the Ryder Cup.
Therefore the friendly Hero Cup was established between players from GB&Ire and their colleagues from the Continent.
Played in Abu Dhabi a week before the regular 2023 season kicks off, two teams of 10 including playing captains Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari compete from Friday through Sunday where there will be 1 foursome session, 2 fourball session at 10 singles matches on Sunday. All 20 players are in action in all sessions.
While the competition is friendly, the team building values that have for so long been a strength of the Europeans can only be enhanced as the new faces that will make up this squad going forward will be replacing the stalwarts like Poulter, Garcia, Westwood who have been so successful winning 12/18 matches since emerging in1985
The 2023 Ryder Cup is in Rome, Italy later this year September 29 - October 1.
Even though a drawn final session would see Continental Europe reach the 13-point mark required for victory, Molinari, who has so far contributed 2.5 points with partner Nicolai Højgaard, is determined to keep his foot on the gas.
He said: "We need to win tomorrow's session. We've done a great job winning two sessions out of three, and halving the other one.
"So we need to go out and win the session. Two points is nothing. We have been obviously in situations where much bigger margins were eroded.
"But I've got full trust and confidence in all the other nine guys, so looking forward to the challenge of tomorrow."
Molinari's side went into Saturday afternoon with the one-shot lead they had built up in Friday's four-balls, after the day's first foursomes session saw both teams take 2.5 points each.
But the afternoon belonged to Continental Europe as they won three of the five matches, with GB&I taking the other two.
GB&I Captain Tommy Fleetwood and Jordan Smith won their afternoon match, and Fleetwood is confident heading into Sunday.
He said: "A couple of matches could have gone either way.
"We ended the day two points behind, but two points behind is fine and we have a full singles session to go.
"We can reflect on today and we'll all sit in the team room and we'll be talking about our rounds and everything, but overall if we go out and get a fast start tomorrow, we're straight back in the game."
europeantour.com
Bryan Angus (*edit)
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