Team Cup - Day one digest

All you need to know from the opening four-balls at Abu Dhabi Golf Resort.

Continental Europe showed moments of brilliance, Great Britain & Ireland overcame early deficits and local familiarity was to the fore at the 2025 Team Cup.

Here is everything you need to know from Friday's opening four-balls at Abu Dhabi Golf Resort.

Rose hails response

Continental Europe led the way early on Friday before Great Britain & Ireland hit back to take a 3½ -1½ overnight lead. Captain Justin Rose partnered Matt Wallace in the opening match but lost 3&1 to Matthieu Pavon and Romain Langasque, while the pairings of Jordan Smith and Laurie Canter and Tommy Fleetwood and Aaron Rai each had to recover from front-nine deficits to win their respective matches. Rose said: “The team rallied well. I would have snapped that up at the beginning of the day, and certainly when I saw the scoreboard at about nine holes.”

Continental class

GB&I may have held the overnight lead but Continental Europe provided some of day one’s highlights, not least this hole-out eagle from Romain Langasque at the eighth hole:

Not to be outdone, Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen produced this chip-in from the lip of a bunker at the same hole soon afterwards:

Bath Boys reunited

“Well done the Bath Boys!” was interviewer Tim Barter’s sign-off after Smith and Canter reacted to their win over Rasmus Højgaard and Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen and the pair, who share their home city in Somerset in south-west England, will play together again on Saturday morning against Frenchmen Pavon and Langasque. Paul Waring and Matthew Jordan will also play together for the second successive day. Waring hails from Birkenhead on England’s Wirral Peninsula and Jordan from 10 miles away in the coastal town of West Kirby.

Tommy wins Moliwood battle

Tommy Fleetwood’s matchplay credentials are well established and he got the upper hand on Francesco Molinari, the other half of the famous “Moliwood” Ryder Cup partnership in 2018, with the help of this long putt: