This weekend's sporting round-up

Credit: Photo by StockCake

Europe held off a late American fightback to claim the Ryder Cup

Since Monday, the excitement of hosting a Ryder Cup in America was in the air as tension and anticipation was ready for Team USA captain Keegan Bradley and European 2023 Ryder Cup winning captain Luke Donald. Despite the fact Europe had won the Ryder Cup four times in America, they were still confident and ready to go for the trophy, the experienced picks of Jon Rahm and Matt Fitzpatrick would add to the likes of Tommy Fleetwood and Rory McIlroy to possibly win the cup for Europe in America for the first time since the Miracle of Medinah in 2013. America,possessed the capabilities of world number one Scottie Scheffler and ‘the peoples champion’ Bryson DeChambeau, crteating an asumption of confidence.

The foursomes began, America started with a magnificent drive from Bryson DeChambeau just short of the green with partner Justin Thomas winning the first hole for Team USA with a Birdie. Then the early morning buzz for the Americans ended up turning into trouble. With Team Europe running rout past the USA, putting blue onto the board, taking a 3-1 advantage into the afternoon session, with coincidentally named Fleetwood Mac (Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood) doing it their own way taking advantage over American duo, Collin Morikawa and Harris English with a 5&4 win for Team Europe. Europe’s dominance continued with Austrian Sepp Straka and Spaniard Jon Rahm beating World Number one Scottie Scheffler and newbie JJ Spaun, players who won three out of the last four golfing majors available. Cameron Young & Justin Thomas beat the Scandinavian pair of Ludvig Åberg & Rasmus Højgaard 6&5 which might’ve been the only positive for the American team in Day 1 as they came with a 2½ - 5½ score entering the second day.  

The second day started, and Team Europe just began from where they left off on day one adding to their score by 3, with magnificent rounds from Jon Rahm and Tyrell Hatton. Europe entered the afternoon Fourballs session with 3½ from America to a 8½ score by Europe. World number one Scottie Scheffler still had not won a game in this Ryder Cup, losing every one of his games when paired up with somebody from the American team, clearly Keegan Bradley’s plans with Scottie were not working in the first two days as the American crowd tried every way possibly to distract and annoy the European players, but with all the skill team Europe produced, Europe had only 2½ points left of retaining the trophy which was standing at 14 points. (USA: 4½ - 11½ : Europe)  

The third and last day began, and with confirmation of Victor Hovland withdrawing from the Ryder Cup, both teams were given a point heading into the last day of play. USA with five points, and Europe with twelve. It was the biggest lead any team had going into the final day. With that determination over the week slowly fading, giving only USA a 2% chance of winning the Ryder Cup, this may be a case of the Americans playing for pride today in front of that New York crowd. It turned into the single type format and straight away, it felt like the Europeans were going to win this cup easy with Matt Fitzpatrick going five up against Bryson DeChambeau towards the seventh hole, with the American eventually shortening the gap between to three at the 12 to honours even at the 17^th. At the end it was a drawn hole from DeChambeau and Fitzpatrick with a draw to end the match. Team USA’s confidence was growing with last hole wins from Cameron Young and Justin Thomas. World Number one Scheffler’s Ryder Cup ended on a high, with a win over current Master’s champion and World Number two Rory McIlroy, which took the points tally to 8½ - 12½. Swedish golfer Ludvig Åberg defeated Patrick Cantlay to make it 13½ for Europe, with Europe only needing a tie to retain the cup. The nerves were apparent for the Europe team with two wins for the USA, cutting the gap to only 3 points with Irishman Shane Lowry ready to take his final putt. American Russell Henley missed his putt to then give Lowry the chance to make Ryder Cup history. Which he did by slotting it into the 18th to officially confirm that Europe had retained the Cup. The US team showed fighting spirit right up until the end of that final day by winning 6 out of 12 games, but it just wasn’t enough and the score was confirmed at 15 – 13 to Europe with European captain Luke Donald being the 2^nd only European Ryder Cup captain to win home and away.  

Vital Weekend in the race for the Premier League title

The Premier League title race proved to be pivotal over the weekend as Crystal Palace managed to defy all the odds with scoring a last-minute goal against a Liverpool team who are renowned for scoring late goals, scoring at least eight goals past the 80^th minute mark, thanks to an Eddie Nketiah goal that officially made Crystal Palace, the last team to stay undefeated in the Premier League and to go up to 3^rd place in the league. Whilst at St James’s Park in Newcastle, despite the controversy over if Nick Pope should have been sent off, it took a last-minute header from captain Gabriel to give the Gunners all three points, to close Liverpool’s lead at the top from five points to two points. In Manchester, A 5-1 win for Manchester City was secured with two goals from Erling Haaland and two own goals from Burnley defender, Maxime Esteve. Meanwhile down in London, Mathias Jensen’s goal for Brentford piled more pressure on United boss Ruben Amorim who has officially won just over twenty-seven percent of his games as Man United manager.  

Historic win for the Red Roses clinching the World Cup as hosts for 1^st time  

England Women made history as they won the Women’s Rugby World Cup for the first ever time on home soil. The hosts played Canada in a game that was watched by over 81 thousand people at Twickenham Stadium. And despite Canada’s early momentum in the game to make it 5-0 inside five minutes, it was all England, who scored three tries to make it 21-8 at the end of the half. Only forty minutes towards victory for the Red Roses. The grit and determination from the Red Roses was obvious as they kept trying to find the try line for that all important five points. Canada tried their best to make it a contest by scoring after half time but unfortunately for the Canadians, England scored a try that would confirm victory with Alex Matthew’s second try of the match to make it 33-13. The pre-tournament favourites, England, managed to achieve their goal in winning the World Cup.