THE first pairings for this year’s Ryder Cup have been announced.

Europe take on bitter rivals the United States at the Marco Simone Golf and Country Club in Rome, Italy.

The action gets underway tomorrow morning and the opening ceremony hosted by Melissa Satta has revealed the first foursome pairings chosen by captains Luke Donald and Zach Johnson.

• Match One: Scottie Scheffler & Sam Burns vs John Rahm & Tyrrell Hatton
• Match Two: Max Homa & Bryan Harman vs Viktor Hovland & Ludvig Aberg
• Match Three: Rickie Fowler & Collin Morikawa vs Shane Lowry & Sepp Straka
• Match Four: Xander Schauffele & Patrick Cantlay vs Rory McIlroy & Tommy Fleetwood

Games begin at 6:35am on September 29.

Rahm leads Team Europe out to hole one with Hatton to face world No1 Scheffler and team-mate Burns with the 44th Ryder Cup set for a sensational start.

The selections mean Matt Fitzpatrick, Nicolai Hojgaard, Robert MacIntyre and Justin Rose miss out for the Europeans.

For the US, Wyndham Clark, Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas are all left on the sidelines.

Europe skipper Donald explained his decisions to choose wonderkid Aberg, who has never even played in a major, saying: “It’s not just what I have seen this week, Ludvig is No1 driver in the rankings and we will need that.”

On choosing Rahm and Hatton together, he has revealed he wanted two players with similar style and “fire”.

Friday afternoon’s fourball groupings will be announced after the morning session.

Those playing on Saturday will be revealed shortly after play finishes on the opening day.

And the match-ups for Sunday’s singles will be announced at the end of day two.

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