After their dominance of the foursomes, the United States piled on the pressure by claiming the afternoon fourballs by 3 points to 1 - the exact same scoreline as the morning.

But such is the fickle finger of fate in golf, the outcome could easily have been much closer with Paul Wesselingh and Barry Taylor coming within a three-foot putt of securing a half point having been three down with four to play.

The duo were always chasing the game after slipping to two down after three, before falling a shot further behind at the 10th. The turning point came at the par three 14th, where both had very realistic birdie chances.

Taylor was first up but could only watch his six foot birdie putt roll past the hole, which Wesselingh also did but from four feet, despite having the same line.

They clawed back shots at 15 and 17 to take the contest down the last where Wesselingh hit a superb approach shot to within three feet of the pin for a potential birdie putt and a half point.

However, Wesselingh never had the opportunity to sink his putt as Scott Hebert plundered a 21-foot effort from the fringe of the green to extinguish any hopes of a brilliant comeback.

"It wasn't all down to the last hole as we had our chances and we should have won that," said Wesselingh.

"I missed a short one on the eighth from about two-and-a-half feet for birdie but we holed nothing. The putt Barry holed on the 17th was the first one all round.

"There's just so many chances but it was all such of a rush at lunchtime and it took me two or three holes to settle down by which point we were a couple down so I'm gutted really."

That point put the American's into the ascendency after morning victors Sonny Skinner and Kyle Flinton claimed their second point of the opening day with a 3&1 success over Jon Bevan and Craig Matheson.

Welsh duo Andrew Barnett and James Lee combined to excellent effect, taking the lead from the first hole. They never relinquished it and reached the turn three up before closing out the match 4&3.

It was welcome relief for Lee, who praised the steadiness of his partner.

"We're delighted to get the point," he said.

"Andrew played really well. He was the strongest player in our pair and I came in on a few holes to help him out. We were pretty solid as a pair and it was great to get a point after the disappointment of this morning.

"But it's the team score that matters and six-two is disappointing on the first day."

In the final pairing, Paul Simpson had recovered sufficiently from his sickness bug to partner Jamie Harris. The duo got off to a strong start against Americans Eric Lippert and Lee Rinker easing into a two hole advantage by the eighth. But four holes later the GB&I pairing were one down and despite a late rally, went down 2&1.

"We've got to do the same as what the Americans did to us and then we're back all square again. If that happens it will be a good weekend," said Simpson.

"It changes round quick in these things, it's all about momentum, in any matchplay event as soon as momentum gets going you can feed off that a little bit but we didn't quite get it going with the putter. We played quite nicely but didn't do the important thing at the end."