Westwood, Garcia benched for Saturday's Ryder Cup matches

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Ryder Cup stalwarts Lee Westwood and Sergio Garcia will get a different view of the famed matches on Saturday morning, a career first for both of them.

From a spot on the European team bench.

In their 11 combined Ryder competitions, neither had ever been told to sit out a match session before they were sent to the sidelines by captain Nick Faldo after Friday's night's matches were completed at Valhalla Golf Club.

Each played twice in Friday's opening matches. Garcia, for the first time, failed to win a match in a full day of play, finishing 0-1-1, while Westwood finished 0-0-2. As it was, Europe only scored one full victory and fell behind 5½-to-2½.

Westwood had played 27 consecutive matches and was undefeated in the past 12, tying the Ryder Cup record held by Arnold Palmer. Garcia has played in 22 consecutive matches. Faldo left the facility before the Saturday alternate-shot pairings were released, saying beforehand that "we need some fresh legs for tomorrow."

His counterpart, Paul Azinger, said he didn’t view the benchings as a sign of panic and refused to speak or make any assumptions for Faldo.

"Captains get a lot of credit and a lot of blame," Azinger said. "Four guys have so sit. I'm not going to read anything into it."

Coming into this year's matches, Garcia and Westwood had a combined Ryder record of 28-12-5.