Luke Donald puts faith in rookies for opening foursomes as Europe eye Ryder Cup revenge

The motivational language being used may vary but Europe's players have made it clear that they are very much united in their quest to regain the Ryder Cup.

English duo Tyrrell Hatton and Matt Fitzpatrick have spoken of revenge – countryman Tommy Fleetwood preferred the word “motivated” while Rory McIlroy went with “determined”.

In Whistling Straits two years ago, Europe found themselves on the wrong end of a record-breaking 19-9 defeat – the largest ever margin of victory in the current 28-point format, which began in 1979.

Now the tournament returns to European shores and Luke Donald's team will be aiming to maintain a 30-year unbeaten home record at the Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Rome.

Donald has shown faith in two of his rookies for the opening session of what is the 44th Ryder Cup. While the pairings of Jon Rahm and Hatton and McIlroy and Fleetwood came as no surprise, Donald also sent out Ludvig Aberg and Sepp Straka in the foursomes.

Rahm and Hatton face world No 1 Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns in the first match, with Aberg and Viktor Hovland up against Max Homa and Open champion Brian Harman.

Straka and Shane Lowry were paired in the third game versus Rickie Fowler and Collin Morikawa, with McIlroy and Fleetwood up against arguably the USA’s strongest pair in Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay.

“We had a pretty good plan in place. It was always going to be a plan that could change, but I didn’t really need to,” said Donald, who also revealed he will use all 12 players on the opening day. “I haven’t given the US pairings much thought to be honest. Nothing surprises me.”

Englishman Hatton, whose opening match is set to tee-off at 9.35am (UAE), did not hide one of his motivating factors going into