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Tiger Woods, Patrick Reed to take on Francesco Molinari, Tommy Fleetwood

Golf

PARIS -- Tiger Woods returns to the Ryder Cup for the first time in six years with a first-day pairing with one of America's best in the competition of late, Patrick Reed.

They will take on Open champion Francesco Molinari of Italy and England's Tommy Fleetwood in the final match of the fourball (best ball) session.

"It's going to be fun for both of us,'' Woods said of his pairing with Reed. "We've been looking forward to teaming up and doing something like this together. We finally have our opportunity to go against two great competitors. One is the Open champion, and Tommy's obviously played extremely well and consistently all year.''

Woods, 42, is coming off a victory on Sunday at the Tour Championship, his first in five years.

It means U.S. captain Jim Furyk, at least for now, is breaking up one of the most successfull U.S. pairings of late, Jordan Spieith and Reed. Spieth will pair with Justin Thomas in a match against Englishmen Paul Casey and Tyrrell Hatton.

Spieth and Reed have combined to go 8-1-3 at the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup, with a 4-1-2 record in the past two Ryder Cups.

"I think you saw those guys together a lot with Tiger as a vice captain [at the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup] and also saw them in practice this week,'' Furyk said. "Tiger and Patrick and Jordan and J.T. . .. we kind of looked at our options.

"I think in the past we came out having our most successful pairing in the Ryder Cup. We had one very good pairing. I think we came out with two very good pairings. The idea was to double up and try and get two.''

The competition begins with Americans Brooks Koepka and Tony Finau against England's Justin Rose and Spain's Jon Rahm. They start at 2:10 a.m. ET.

That match is followed by Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler against Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy and Denmark's Thorbjorn Olesen.

European captain Thomas Bjorn explained that his decision was made tougher knowing that so many on his team are playing well.

"There's a new guy in every group,'' he said of Rahm, Fleetwood, Olesen and Hatton. "They have just been itching to go, especially Thorbjorn and Jon and Tyrrell, they are just really desperate to get out on that golf course. I wanted to get them out there.

"This is what we go with tomorrow morning, and it's a marathon.''

The U.S. will attempt to regain the Cup is won at Hazeltine in Minnesota two years ago and win consecutive Cups for the first time since 1991 and 1993. The Americans have not won on foreign soil in 25 years, a string of five consecutive road losses.

The Ryder Cup consists of 28 matches, with eight played on Friday and eight on Saturday, followed by 12 singles matches on Sunday. The U.S. needs 14 points to retain the Cup while Europe needs 14 ½ to win it.

The order of fourball and foursomes was determined by Europe, with the fourball matches taking place in the morning, and foursomes in the afternoon on each of the first two days.

Sitting out the first session for the Americans will be Bryson DeChambeau, Phil Mickelson, Webb Simpson and Bubba Watson. Watching for the Europeans will be Sergio Garcia, Alex Noren, Ian Poulter and Henrik Stenson.

Neither captain would divulge if they are planning on using all of their players on Friday.

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