Rory McIlroy happy to team up with Tommy Fleetwood in Ryder Cup opening session

RORY McIlroy is hoping his winning Ryder Cup partnership with Tommy Fleetwood in Rome two years ago can come up trumps again for Team Europe in New York.

After winning both their alternate shot matches together in the 16.5-11.5 victory at Marco Simone Golf Club, the duo have been retained by Luke Donald for the opening foursomes session at Bethpage Black on Friday.

Out in the third match at the Long Island venue, Masters champion McIlroy and FedEx Cup winner Fleetwood will face Collin Morikawa and Harris English.

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“Honestly, really happy to partner with this guy again,” said McIlroy of the opening assignment in his eighth appearance in the biennial event.

“We had a great time in Rome a couple years ago. We are very close. Our families are very close. Yeah, try to get another blue point on the board.”

Europe won the opening session 4-0 - the first time it had produced a clean sweep - in Rome before also coming out on top 3-1 in the second-day foursomes.

Donald has also retained the pairing of Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton from two years ago but has mixed up his other two groups on this occasion.

Ludvig Aberg, who recorded a record-breaking 9&7 win alongside Viktor Hovland, over Scottie Scheffler in the second session, is teaming up instead with Matthew Fitzpatrick.

Hovland, meanwhile, has been paired with Bob MacIntyre, who only played in the fourballs in Italy but has taken his game to a new level over the past two years.

“We feel like this is our strongest to go against them,” said Donald, a three-time winner as a player and now bidding to join Tony Jacklin as the only captain to win both home and away in the transatlantic tussle.

“We want to get off to a good start like we did in Rome, but we also understand the challenge ahead of us. This is a line up that we are very, very comfortable with.”

On the McIlroy-Fleetwood pairing, he added: “There's a strategy behind everything we do. It gets very tricky to try and see what the US are doing and plan around that.

“That's not in our control. We control what we can control and how we feel like we're going to get the most out of a session and that's where we went.”

Foursomes (European names first; Ireland times)

12.10pm Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton v Bryson DeChambeau and Justin Thomas; 12.26pm Ludvig Aberg and Matthew Fitzpatrick v Scottie Scheffler and Russell Henley; 12.42pm Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood v Collin Morikawa and Harrish English; 12.50pm Bob MacIntyre and Viktor Hovland v Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay.