Europe captain Luke Donald showed faith in two of his rookies for the opening session of the 44th Ryder Cup in Rome.
While the pairings of Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton and Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood came as no surprise, Donald also sent out Ludvig Aberg and Sepp Straka in the foursomes.
Rahm and Hatton faced world number one Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns in the first match, with Aberg and Viktor Hovland up against Max Homa and Open champion Brian Harman.
Straka and Shane Lowry were paired in match three versus Rickie Fowler and Collin Morikawa, with McIlroy and Fleetwood up against arguably the USA’s strongest pair in Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay.
Donald said what he had seen in practice this week had reinforced the plans he had in mind from the outset in terms of his pairings.
“We had a pretty good plan in place. It was always going to be a plan that could change, but I didn’t really need to,” he said.
“I haven’t given the US pairings much thought to be honest. Nothing surprises me.”
Johnson left out two of his captain’s picks in Jordan Spieth and, more contentiously, Justin Thomas, despite the two forging an impressive Ryder Cup partnership in previous editions.
“The gist of it is we have only 12 guys and unfortunately I can’t play all 12 each session so at some point someone has to sit,” he said.
“It’s a golf course which demands a lot out of you physically, I think it’s an ideal situation where you don’t necessarily play everyone all five sessions.
“The eight guys I have down on paper I feel put us in the best position to get us off to a great start.
“There is a lot of things I’d like to keep internal, but I have the utmost confidence in these eight and the utmost confidence in Jordan and Justin.
“It’s not about their form, they are playing great, it is really just a mater of trying to dissect all five sessions.”
Tee times for the first session of the 44th Ryder Cup at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club, Rome, on Friday, September 29:
Foursomes
(Europe names first, all times BST)
0635 Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton v Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns
0650 Viktor Hovland and Ludvig Aberg v Max Homa and Brian Harman
0705 Shane Lowry and Sepp Straka v Rickie Fowler and Collin Morikawa
0720 Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood v Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantley