First Ryder Cup rookie gaffe belongs to Fowler

Jim Furyk consoles Rickie Fowler after Fowler dropped the wrong kind of ball in their foursomes match, causing the duo to lose the hole.

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NEWPORT, Wales – With eleven Ryder Cup rookies in this year’s competition at the Celtic Manor, it was only a matter of time before one of them made a mistake. Chalk up the first dubious honor to Rickie Fowler.

No, he didn’t wear his orange outfit to the first tee; even worse, he cost his team a hole by playing the wrong ball at the par-4 fourth.

Playing in the second foursomes match of the second session alongside Jim Furyk, Fowler reached the errant tee shot and found it in mud. When he was afforded a drop onto a cart path, no less, he apparently reached into his pocket and put his ball in play. While it was still a Titleist, it wasn’t the Titleist that Furyk had hit off the tee.

Thus did he violate the rule that states you must finish a hole with the same ball with which you started it.

The mistake put Furyk and Fowler 2 down against a superb European team, Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer.