Scottie Scheffler is having historically bad Ryder Cup

Scottie Scheffler stands alone.

The world’s No. 1 player, whose Ryder Cup embarrassment in Rome in 2023 reduced him to tears, became the first American player ever to lose a match in each of the first four sessions of the event.

No player on either side had done so since 1971 (Peter Townsend).

Scheffler, who is winless in his past eight Ryder Cup matchups, is the first top-ranked player to lose more than two matches in the event, having led for a total of three of his 65 holes at Bethpage Black.

Scheffler and Ryder Cup rookie Russell Henley lost in foursomes for the second straight day — previously losing to a pairing featuring Matt Fitzpatrick, who had the worst Ryder Cup win percentage of any player since 1979 — this time to Viktor Hovland and Bob MacIntyre (1-up).

Scheffler has lost all four matches he’s participated in in the alternate shot format, winning a total of six of the 59 holes he’s played.

Though Scheffler’s play improved Saturday, Henley did him few favors, routinely missing putts.

Trailing by one on the 18th hole, Scheffler cemented the U.S. loss with an awful approach shot into the rough between bunkers, short of the green.

“We battled hard out there,” Scheffler said. “The guys we played against just played great.”

The four-ball session saw Scheffler, 29, form a dream team with Bryson DeChambeau, but the stars lost an early lead to Tommy Fleetwood — who has won all four matches — and Justin Rose, falling 3 & 2.

Scheffler opened the match with a pair of birdies, but Rose was even better, going under par in six of the first eight holes.

Scheffler is 2-0 all-time in singles play at the Ryder Cup. No American has ever lost five matches at one Ryder Cup.

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In Round 2, Keegan Bradley led with his chin.

The first-time U.S. captain invited second-guessing when he decided to run back two of his losing pairings from Friday’s lopsided foursomes session — including the much-criticized duo of Collin Morikawa and Harris English — and got kicked in the teeth again, as Team USA dropped three of the four matches in Saturday’s early session.

Bradley’s reasoning for reusing Morikawa and English — who had won just one hole together the previous day and combined for one birdie — inspired little confidence in the captain.

“We’re sticking to our plan,” Bradley said. “We’re not going to panic. We’re not going to panic and make those sort of mistakes. We’re going to stick to what we know. We have a lot of confidence in them.”

That confidence evaporated on the front nine, as Morikawa and English trailed Rory McIlroy and Fleetwood by four after eight holes, with Justin Thomas, Ben Griffin, Sam Burns and J.J. Spaun on the bench.

“They were tough the last two days,” English said. “They didn’t give us anything.”

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With victories in Saturday’s morning session, the pairings of McIlroy and Fleetwood, as well as Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton, improved to 5-0-0 in foursomes play, trailing José María Olazábal and Seve Ballesteros (6-1-1) for the most all-time points by any pairings in the format.

McIlroy improved to 8-1-1 in his past 10 Ryder Cup matches, while Rahm and Fleetwood each improved to 7-0-0 in foursomes.

Fleetwood also now has the highest career Ryder Cup win percentage (11-3-2) of any European with at least 10 matches.

“You need your superstars to perform at their highest,” European captain Luke Donald said. “And they certainly have done that.”