Continental Europe kept their noses in front in The Seve Trophy despite losing the second day fourball session as Great Britain and Ireland launched a fightback at The Wynyard Club in North East England.
GB&I were clearly fired up by some harsh words from their captain Colin Montgomerie the previous evening and won the session 3-2 but remain two points adrift of the Continentals after the second day, trailing 6-4.
With both captains sticking with their first day partnerships there were plenty of players on the GB&I side looking to make amends for their first day’s record defeat.
Paul Casey and David Howell in particular were on fire, birdieing the first six holes in racing to five up in no time at all against the top Continental pairing of their captain José Maria Olazábal and Miguel Angel Jiménez. That margin remained intact as they cruised to a 5 and 4 win.
The “Hollywood” pairing, as Ian Poulter and Nick Dougherty have been named by their captain Colin Montgomerie, bounced back from their opening day defeat with an equally impressive 5 and 4 win over the French connection of Thomas Levet and Jean-Francois Remesy.
Remesy and Levet had been the heroes the previous day with their one hole victory over the leading GB&I pair of Padraig Harrington and Paul McGinley but the Irish duo lived up to their top billing with a 3 and 1 win over the Swedish pair of Niclas Fasth and Peter Hanson.
Another Scandinavian partnership however again proved too strong for the GB&I team as Thomas Björn and Henrik Stenson defeated Montgomerie and Graeme McDowell 3 and 2. Stenson has stepped into the role with ease and continues to astound the galleries with some huge blows, such as the 389 yard drive he hit to within ten feet of the hole on the par four 13th. Although he missed the putt they ran in comfortable winners.
That left just one match on the course with all eyes focused on the four rookies in Maarten Lafeber and Emanuele Canonica against Stephen Dodd and Bradley Dredge. The match couldn’t have started any worse for the Welsh pair when Dredge discovered he had left a fairway wood in the bag and, as he was carrying 15 clubs, the team were penalised a hole. One down after one but they fought back well and with three holes today were all square.
But then Canonica, who yesterday was announced as winner of the RBS Shot of the Month for his chip on the 16th hole at Gleneagles on his way to victory in the Johnnie Walker Championship, again produced a shot of genius.
After a huge drive on the 16th left him just 40 yards short of the green, the Italian played a perfect chip and run which disappeared down the hole for an eagle two and took the Continentals one up with two to play. They held on for a two hole victory and the match remains finely balanced.
“The three top top pairings with Nick and Ian and my two Ryder Cup pairings, five Ryder Cup players out of six there, they all won today, which was great,” said Montgomerie. “They were all fired up this morning and that's great.
“It was a shame to be 4 1 down yesterday when Harrington was inside Remesy and lost the hole, and I think we played better than 3 2 today. But we had to win. It was a necessity to win the series today, and we did that. All credit to them all for doing that, but we have to keep going now. We're still behind, but the gap closed and we have to keep going through tomorrow.”
Olazábal remained upbeat despite losing the session.
“Those boys must have listened very carefully to what Monty said yesterday. They played really well. I think all matches are played really well and they made a bunch of birdies.
“Actually at the end of the day I'm pretty happy to end the day 3 2 because I think most of the day we were down in four matches. And it looked like they were going to turn the tables around today and give us the 4 1 defeat that we had yesterday. But Emanuele and Maarten managed to hold on to the last few holes and won a point and I think that made a big difference for today's results.”
The match continues with four Greensomes ties in the morning with Montgomerie resting himself and Dredge in the GB&I side while Remesy and Lafeber will sit out the morning session for the Continental Europeans.
