Europeans take commanding lead after U.S team wastes hopeful start

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. — The Americans’ comeback was short-lived. The next one will have to be the biggest in history for them to win the 35th Ryder Cup.

Backed by the clutch performance from its English rookies and reliable play from Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood, Europe put the United States in another huge hole Saturday by taking an 11-5 lead and making victory today seem like a mere formality.

Europe looked as if it might get swept in the morning, but recovered to win 1 1/2 points to maintain its lead. Then it turned the Ryder Cup into a runaway, sending Tiger Woods and Davis Love III to a crushing loss and whipping up on the rest of their teammates.

The Americans can’t rely on memories from Brookline five years ago, when they trailed 10-6 before staging the greatest comeback in Ryder Cup history by front-loading their best players to build momentum and eventually winning on Justin Leonard’s 45-foot birdie putt.

Finding their best players is the real problem, not to mention a six-point deficit.

“There’s not a lot we can say,” U.S. captain Hal Sutton said. “We’ve been outplayed to this point. We’ll have to come out charging.”

Europe will be waiting. Even as its fans wrapped themselves in flags and heartily sang “Ole! Ole!,” the players were cautious to celebrate too early.

“We’ve got too much respect for the Americans,” Paul McGinley said after he and Padraig Harrington stormed back form an early deficit to beat Woods and Love. “The lessons from Brookline have been learned. It’s a great day, two really good days. But we have a long way to go.”

Where’s Mark James when the Americans need him?

He was the European captain in 1999 who benched three rookies until Sunday, then sent them out as sacrificial lambs that enabled the United States to rally.

Current European captain Bernhard Langer allowed three of his rookies to make their Ryder Cup debut Saturday, and two of them shined. Paul Casey and David Howell won the final two holes for a 1-up victory in a better-ball that kept the Americans at bay and gave Europe a surge of confidence for the afternoon.

Europe immediately took the lead in the first three matches, but the turning point came in the one it trailed.

Woods, who won earlier Saturday with the ebullient Chris Riley, teamed with Love to win the first two holes and seemed destined to make it a short match.

“I didn’t see a way out for us,” Harrington said. “Paul said to me going up the second hole, ‘Look, we’re in trouble here. We shouldn’t be playing against these guys; we should be playing the course. From here on in, we’ll shoot under par.’ And that’s what we did.”

Woods and Love bogeyed four out of six holes in the middle of the match and lost, 4 and 3.

Phil Mickelson, benched in the morning after his poor play Friday, joined David Toms for the lone U.S. victory in the afternoon, 4 and 3 over Thomas Levet and Miguel Angel Jimenez.

The European stalwarts were Garcia and Westwood, the only players who have yet to lose a match this week.

First, they held off Jay Haas and Chris DiMarco for a tie and a half-point in the morning.

Westwood teamed with Darren Clarke for a 5-and-4 victory over Haas and DiMarco in the afternoon, and Garcia joined Luke Donald to win 1 up over Jim Furyk and Fred Funk.

After a par on the 18th clinched the match, Garcia retrieved the flag and waved it over his head, then leapt into the arms of his teammates.