Inconsistency continued to plague Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy, Europe's marquee group at the Ryder Cup, in their second match of the opening day at Gleneagles and they are all square at the turn of their foursome match against Rickie Fowler and Jimmy Walker.
After their fourball match this morning - a last-hole defeat to Keegan Bradley and Phil Mickelson - overran, the world-ranked number one and three were given a 30-minute break before heading out for their second game of the day.
The opening two holes were halved in a par and birdie respectively before Fowler and Walker, who also played this morning, made a mess of the third and par was good enough for Europe to go ahead.
The long par-three fourth was halved in a par before Garcia wildly hooked his drive on the fifth out of bounds. The pair managed a double-bogey, which was almost good enough for a half, but the Americans' bogey levelled the contest.
Garcia responded to his errant tee shot on the previous hole with a long birdie putt at the sixth to restore his team's lead in the match. However, the duo would bogey the next hole to surrender the initiative once more.
At the eighth, McIlroy had the longer of the two birdie putts and sunk it to put the pressure on Walker, who coolly rolled his home too to keep the match level.
The par-5 9th was ugly from both pairs, but they managed pars to leave the match as you were going into the second half of the tussle.
Following Sports Mole's minute-by-minute coverage of the back nine here.
Pascal Lemesre
