Stephen Gallacher and Paul Lawrie will have an immediate chance to redeem themselves in the Seve Trophy by Golf+ when they again face Nicolas Colsaerts and Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano in the opening match of the Saturday morning foursomes.
The GB&I pair were comfortably second best as the European duo romped to a 6&5 victory in today’s fourball matches, equalling the record margin of victory at the Seve Trophy. But the Scots have the opportunity to exact revenge in the top match as they look to make an immediate gain to close the one point gap in the overall match.
Jamie Donaldson and Marc Warren, who ran out impressive winners over Björn and Jiménez, face the other form European pairing of Joost Luiten and Gregory Bourdy in match two hoping to inflict a first defeat on the home pair.
The Italians have been split up for the first time with Francesco Molinari partnering Thorbjorn Olesen against Chris Wood and Scott Jamieson, playing with his third partner of the week, in match four.
And the final match sees Paul Casey partnering Tommy Fleetwood against Miguel Angel Jiménez And Matteo Manassero in an intriguing blend of youth and experience.
Continental Europe Captain José María Olazábal has therefore rested Mikko Ilonen and Thomas Björn with GB&I Captain Sam Torrance opting to give David Lynn, who has been battling flu symptons, and Simon Khan a rest for the first foursomes session.
“It wasn’t that hard,” said Torrance on choosing who to leave out. “David Lynn has not been great. He's been very flu y and Simon Khan had just a twinge in his back and had to sake some Advil out on the course today. So I’ll give them a rest in the morning and see what happens.”
After announcing his pairings, Olazábal said: “I've left Thomas Björn and Mikko for tomorrow morning. Thomas played well today but 36 holes tomorrow, it could be just a little too much in the sense that I want him fresh for Sunday. And Mikko, no particular reason. The rest of the guys were playing well. I kept two pairings the same way because they have done well so far, and I've had to rest another guy and in this case it was Mikko. But most probably he will be playing in the afternoon.”
Of his standout pair of Colsaerts and Fernandez-Castaño, Olazábal added: “They played awesome golf yesterday and today. There is no reason to change that pairing so far any ways. That's why I think with that pairing, and the same reason for Joost and Grégory. I think they both played really well again today and it seems to me that, you know, they understand each other very well on the golf course. So I'm sticking with those two.”
