McGinley’s underdogs take a bite out of Europeans in Vivendi Trophy

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Paul McGinley’s Great Britain and Ireland team completed a nap hand of victories in the Seve (Vivendi) Trophy at St Nom la Breteche, Paris with a fifth straight win the competition over the Continental Europe side captained by Thomas Bjorn.

After taking a slender two-point lead into Saturday’s greensomes and foursomes matches, many thought that McGinley’s side would eventually succumb to their underdogs tag and allow the Europeans back into the match. However, nothing could have been further from the truth as McGinley’s men set up victory by taking command of Saturday’s matches to open up a seemingly invincible seven-point gap with only the singles matches left to play on Sunday.

The ten singles matches became nine after Anthony Wall was forced to pull out of his match against the big hitting Spaniard, Alvaro Quiroz due to a shoulder injury, meaning that match would be halved. It left the Great Britain and Ireland team needing only one-and-a-half points to secure victory and with seven matches still on the course stood with an insurmountable 15-7 lead after Rory McIlroy defeated Henrick Stenson on the last green and Graeme McDowell had beaten Robert Karlsson 3 and 2.

Although the Europeans fought back to reduce the scoreline, there was nothing they could do to win the trophy and eventually succumbed to a 16.5 to 11.5 loss.

“We had a huge lead going into Sunday,” said victorious McGinley. “We had 90 per cent of the job done, and I think we all really enjoyed it.

“The team spirit was extremely good, and the boys who had not played team golf before, got off on a really good foot and hopefully they will fly the flag for Europe in the future.”

Debutant Chris Wood enjoyed a rich vein of form in the tournament and clawed a half from his match against Sweden’s Peter Hanson, despite being two down at one stage.

Ten birdies saw Denmark’s Anders Hansen thrash Englishman Nick Dougherty 7&6, while Soren Hansen defeated Steve Webster 4&2. Miguel Angel Jimenez of Spain secured a 3-and-2 win against Ross Fisher, while his compatriot Gonzalo Fernandez Castano lost to Robert Rock by one hole.

Francesco Molinari, meanwhile beat Oliver Wilson 5&4 and Simon Dyson lost to another Dane in Soren Kjeldsen by 3&1