"Fleetwood Mac" on fire as Europe calls the early tune

ROME : Europe picked up just where they left off by storming into an early lead in the Ryder Cup foursomes on Saturday, with crowd favourites Tommy Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy - dubbed Fleetwood Mac - winning the first three holes of the first match.

Unsurprisingly, European captain Luke Donald decided to use the same four foursomes combinations that swept the board 4-0 on Friday morning, and it was again looking a good policy after the early exchanges with Europe leading in two, level in one and down in one after the first hour's action.

He did shuffle the order slightly, sending McIlroy, who won both his Friday matches, and Fleetwood out first, perhaps as part of a strategy to get the crowd firing early on, and how it paid off.

Unlike on Friday, opposite number Zach Johnson did not keep his gun pairing of Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth kicking their heels until the afternoon, putting them out as his lead pair.

However, they were horribly off-beam early on as Fleetwood’s 35ft (11 m) putt on the second ignited the crowd.

The first three Americans pairings missed the first fairway from the tee, and a double bogey by world number one Scottie Scheffler and Brooks Koepka gifted Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Aberg the first. They surged on to win the next three to be four up after four.

If the crowd wasn’t pumped up enough already, the presence of Seve Ballesteros’s son Javier on the first tee as a huge poster of the Spanish superstar was rolled through the grandstand pushed them over the edge.

"Seve is an inspiration every time," said Donald. "He was the ultimate European Ryder Cup player who made everyone else play better. He had so much passion for this event and wanted to win at all costs. We always respect Seve and he is a big