Friday 30 September 2016 23:08, UK
Paul McGinley analyses Europe's opening foursome pairings and reflects on USA captain Davis Love III's performance so far.
Davis Love spoke very well at the opening ceremony and has been thrown a few curveballs this week, like most Ryder Cup captains are during tournament week, but I think he has dealt with those pretty well.
It's a very difficult time for the captain as the media are hungry for stories an there's not a lot going on on the golf course, so that anything that comes out raises its head even more.
It's clear that [McIlroy] really rates Sullivan highly and I think he'll get off to a good start with him tomorrow.
Phil Mickelson said some things on Wednesday that were blown in to a big story, but the captain was able to deal with it and move on.
Solid start
The foursome groups for Europe are pretty predictable and are pretty much what we saw go out for practice on Thursday, with Danny Willett obviously the only one missing from those.
They're good pairings and I'm glad that Darren went down the fairly predictable route of Justin Rose and Henrik Stenson in the first game.
The reaction of Davis Love in knowing what he was going to do and then going toe-to-toe with him in selecting Patrick Reed and Jordan Spieth is a great way to start the tournament.
We've seen him have a downturn over the past year, but in the last month Rory McIlroy has started to threaten again. When Rory goes that way, he gets confident and he's going to be pretty formidable this week.
He has been looking to play with Andy Sullivan and it has been public knowledge over the past nine months. It's clear that he really rates Sullivan highly and I think he'll get off to a good start with him.
Sullivan has potential to step in to the shoes of Ian Poulter and be that talisman, that bouncy character with a smile on his face, so expect him to also do really well in this tournament.
