Hero Cup: Four-ball pairings announced

Captain Tommy Fleetwood will lead his Great Britain & Ireland team out on day one as he and Shane Lowry take on Continental Europe's Thomas Pieters and Alex Noren in the first match of the Hero Cup.

The quartet of Ryder Cup stars will get Friday's four-balls under way at 11.05 local time at Abu Dhabi Golf Club, with four more matches completing the first day's action.

Thomas Detry and Antoine Rozner take on Tyrrell Hatton and Jordan Smith 15 minutes later, before Victor Perez and Guido Migliozzi go up against Callum Shinkwin and Matt Wallace.

Continental Europe skipper Francesco Molinari has saved himself for match four and he will play alongside Nicolai Højgaard as they square off against Ewen Ferguson and Richard Mansell.

The anchor match will then see Sepp Straka and Adrian Meronk face Séamus Power and Robert MacIntyre at 12.05.

There will then be ten sets of foursomes on Saturday and ten sets of singles matches on Sunday, with every player playing every session over the three days to decide who lifts the trophy.

“We’ve loaded up all the way through really,” said Fleetwood. “We have a great team but there are no easy matches. That’s a great team as well but I feel very confident in my guys, like we all do. It’s great to see the pairings finally out and I’m looking forward to seeing what’s going to happen.

“I concentrated on our guys but it’s worked out really well. I think the matches look great.”

Molinari added: “I think there are some great matches. We’ve been saying all week, there are two very talented teams and there will be some exciting golf played in the next few days.”