Continental Europe will take a two-point lead into the ultimate day of the Hero Cup after shading the Saturday afternoon foursomes.
Francesco Molinari’s males have been a degree forward of Great Britain and Ireland in a single day and held on to that slender benefit when the groups took 2.5 factors every from the 5 foursomes matches on Saturday morning.
The afternoon session then completed 3-2 to Continental Europe to provide them an 8.5-6.5 cushion forward of the Sunday singles at Abu Dhabi Golf Club.
GB&I captain Tommy Fleetwood, who misplaced the highest match on Friday, stepped up with two wins from two on the second day. He linked up with Tyrrell Hatton to see off Sepp Straka and Thomas Detry in a morning match that went to 18 earlier than partnering Jordan Smith to a 2&1 win over Alex Noren and Thomas Pieters.
Three birdies of their final 5 holes for Callum Shinkwin and Matt Wallace sealed a 2&1 win over Antoine Rozner and Adrian Meronk however the different three afternoon video games went Continental Europe’s approach.
Molinari, like his pal Fleetwood, led by instance on day two, partnering Nicolai Hojgaard for the third match in a row and making it 2.5 factors from three by beating Ewen Ferguson and Richard Mansell 2&1.
Elsewhere, Detry holed a protracted birdie putt on 17 to place him and Straka one up on Shane Lowry and Hatton, and so they held on for the purpose earlier than Victor Perez and Guido Migliozzi ended Robert MacIntyre’s hopes of a 3rd straight victory with a 2&1 overcome the Scot and Seamus Power.
Fleetwood stated: “In the morning, there was some amazing golf played and literally as guys start fatiguing and they have to get themselves back up for the afternoon, the standard of golf changes and it’s more mistakes, and it’s really important to keep your body language up and push all the way to the end. I was proud of how our guys did that.
“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 we go out and get a fast start tomorrow, we’re straight back in the game.”
Molinari is decided to not let that occur. He stated: “Well, 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 in situations where much bigger margins were eroded. But I’ve got full trust and confidence in all the other nine guys, so I’m looking forward to the challenge of tomorrow.”
