Europe lose momentum after rain delay (2nd Lead)

By Peter Auf der Heyde Oct 1, 2010, 19:29 GMT

Newport, Wales - A seven-hour rain delay on Friday at the Ryder Cup saw Europe lose some of the momentum they had before play was suspended after just two hours in the morning session.

When pouring rain forced play to be stopped on the Celtic Manor course in Newport, Wales, Europe were looking strong and were up in three of the four fourballs being played.

Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer were 2-up after five holes against Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson, Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell held a one stroke lead over Stewart Cink and Matt Kuchar through four while Ian Poulter and Ross Fisher were also 1-up after three against Steve Stricker and Tiger Woods.

Only the fourth flight saw the US leading with rookies Bubba Watson and Jeff Overton 2-up against Luke Donald and Padraig Harrington after two.

Play resumed for two further hours in the late afternoon and by the time darkness made further golf impossible, the US were up in two of the matches, while Europe were leading one and one was halved, to make the score at the end of Friday's 2.5 to the US and 1.5 to Europe.

In the afternoon Mickelson, who had looked out of sorts in the morning, played three birdies in a row on the ninth, tenth and 11th hole.

The left-handed American managed to win just one of those as PGA champion Kaymer, who had also not been particularly impressive in the morning, also found his form and birdied two of them, keeping their lead to one after they had finished the 12th hole.

In the second flight, Cink was on fire as he managed four birdies in the seven holes they played to take the Americans two up as McIlroy and McDowell had very little to offer against Cink's form.

World number one Woods also found his form in the afternoon as he managed to find a birdie at the ninth to take the Americans one up in that flight, but Ian Poulter managed to take Europe back to all- square on the last hole as he birdied the par three tenth.

The final flight ended with the players on the green and the US 1- up after eight holes, but in with a strong chance to win the hole as Donald was facing a tough putt to halve the hole.

Shortly before play ended on Friday, organizers announced that they had re-scheduled the format in an attempt to finish the competition on Sunday.

Instead of playing four foursome flights in the second session, which was due to be played on Friday afternoon, six foursome matches will now be played.

These will be followed by two foursomes and four fourballs in the third session and then the 12 single matches on Sunday.

In fourball matches, each golfer plays his own ball and the player with the lowest score on a hole wins the hole for his team. If two or more players are equal the hole is halved.

In foursomes matches the golfers from one team play alternate shots and whichever team has the better score wins the hole, while the 12 singles matches singles see two players competing against each other.

The European Tour Chief Executive George O'Grady said that the new schedule, which would save them about five hours, gave them a shot at finishing the competition, which sees 12-man teams from the US and Europe competing against each other, on Sunday.

'It all depends on the sky. We do not have a good forecast for Sunday, but it is supposed to be good on Monday. We wanted to keep the 28 points on offer and try to finish on Sunday.