A lot has changed about Tiger Woods since he last played in a Ryder Cup in 2012, but the look he wears when he is losing is not one of them. By the time Woods stepped off the 17th tee on Friday morning he had on that familiar grimace of his. He blew his tee shot left into the rough, something he had done several times already. The stuff is so thick around here he had to hack out, again, which meant that, short of conjuring a miraculous chip in, the dirty look was all he could do to stop Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari from winning the match 3&1.

Woods was paired with Patrick Reed. It looked a strong combination when they announced it. The two of them had doubled up in the last Ryder Cup at Hazeltine in 2016, when Woods was not playing, but was one of the vice-captains. Jordan Spieth tells a story about how Woods shot down Reed’s attempt to trash talk him by telling him: “Don’t worry Patrick, you only need 74 more wins and 14 more majors,” which, Spieth says, keyed Reed up in just the right way.

Reed prefers the one about the time Woods pulled him aside before his famous game against Rory McIlroy and got him to relax by cracking a dirty joke. Now Woods and Reed actually had to play together, they just did not quite click. By the end the two of them could not even get their metaphors straight. “We didn’t ham-and-egg it very well,” Reed said afterwards, whereas, Woods added, Molinari and Fleetwood were “really nickel-and-diming it”.

Woods had some spectacular patches. He has been playing so well lately, and was bound to bring a little of the form that won him the Tour Championship at East Lake last weekend over here with him. He won the 2nd with an astonishing tee shot that earned him a gimme, and halved the 3rd with a brilliant pitch on to the green.

The problem was Reed’s game was running cold. He already hit a shot into the water at the 1st, and he flopped his tee-shot at the 2nd flush into the deep rough. The crowd around here seem to hate Reed almost as much as they love Woods. Reed gets booed wherever he goes, but Woods is the one US golfer who is so popular that even the Europeans fans want to see him succeed. It has always been that way here. The first time he came to this course, to play the World Amateur Team Championships in 1994, he drew bigger crowds than all the French golfers playing did put together. Le Figaro even compared him to Mozart.

Soon enough, Woods and Reed were one down, and none of the European fans watching seemed too sure whether they should jeer them or cheer them. They finally made up their minds when there was a two-shot swing coming into the turn, as Fleetwood lost his putting touch and Molinari struggled with the gusting wind. They turned in four bogeys between them at the 7th and 9th, and when Reed birdied the 10th by chipping in from off the green, the USA were two-up with eight to play. “That part’s frustrating,” Woods said. “It would have been a different story if we were down the entire match.”

Instead, Molinari wrenched the lead away from them again with back-to-back birdies at the 11th and 12th. And then everything flipped at the 15th. Woods had a bad lie in the rough, and stopped for a chat with Reed about what to do. He told Reed he would lay-up and look to make par, which would leave Reed free to play an aggressive second shot right at the flag.

The conversation went on, and then, when it was done, Reed immediately dumped his approach into the water. “And then,” Woods explained, “Tommy buried it from off the green.” Bad as Reed’s shot there was, Woods’s at the 16th was worse. It fell in the water too, some 20ft shy of the green.

This time Fleetwood made his birdie putt another from 35ft. It was right about now that Woods started scowling. He looked a little stiff, too, and some of the commentators started speculating that his back might be tightening up on him. Woods denied it: “I’m not going to work on anything,” he said, “my game is fine.” But Furyk did rest him during the afternoon’s foursomes. It was only the second time that has happened to Woods, after Davis Love III made him sit out the Saturday foursomes at Medinah in 2012. Back then, there was a row about whether or not it was the right thing to do.

This time, given Woods’s workload so far this season, it seemed a sensible choice. Woods said he would be “ready come tomorrow whenever the captain needs me” and spent the afternoon walking the course with Spieth and Justin Thomas. Instead, the USA sent Phil Mickelson out to play foursomes with Bryson DeChambeau. And if Woods’s morning was rough, it looked pretty good next to what happened to those two. They were steamrollered by Sergio Garcia and Alex Noren, 5&4.

Woods’s career record in the Ryder Cup, then, stands at won 13, lost 18, halved three. Mickelson’s is 18-21-7. Since the organisers first folded the rest of Europe into the British and Irish team back in 1979, six men eligible for the competition have won four or more majors, Woods, Mickelson, Tom Watson, Seve Ballesteros, Nick Faldo and Rory McIlroy. Woods has the worst Ryder Cup record of any of them. Mickelson is a close second. Then there is fresh air before you get to Faldo. The two greatest players of their generation never have quite figured out how to play with others instead of against them.