Tiger Woods paid one of his European opening match rival, Tommy Fleetwood a huge compliment on the eve of the much-anticipated showdown at Le Golf National in Versailles.

Woods and fellow Masters winner, Patrick Reed are up against Fleetwood and reigning Open Champion, Francesco Molinari in the last match of four in tomorrow’s opening Fourball encounter.

While it is team format, it will be the fifth occasion this year and also the second in eight days Woods and Fleetwood will be out together.

Woods and Fleetwod had been out alongside each other, as well as Aussie Marc Leishman, in the first two rounds of the Masters with Fleetwood posting a pair of 72s to Woods 73 and 75 at Augusta.

Tiger Woods and Tommy Fleetwood eight days ago on day one of the Tour Championship

Then at the recent Northern Trust the trio found themselves again grouped with Fleetwood ending in front of Woods with first two rounds of 67 and 68 to a pair of 71s from Woods.

Woods then finally got the better of Fleetwood shooting an opening score of 65 compared to Fleetwood’s 69 on the first day of the Tour Championship that Woods eventually won to capture an 80th PGA Tour title.

So, when Woods was quizzed what he thought of Fleetwood’s game the now eight-time capped Woods knew what he was talking about.

“Tommy and Francesco are some of the two best ball-strikers we have on Tour, and this is certainly a ball-striker’s golf course,” said Woods.

“It’s tight, a lot of rough, I think the forecast is for some wind tomorrow, so it’s going to be a difficult task to get the ball in play and important to get the ball in play.

Tommy Fleetwood and Francesco Molinari

“The greens, the size that they are, it’s going to be important to be able to putt the ball in the correct sections. It will be a premium on ball-striking for sure.

“It’s going to be fun for both of Patrick and myself. We’ve been looking forward to teaming up and doing something like this together. We finally have our opportunity to go against two great competitors. One is The Open Champion, and Tommy’s played obviously extremely well and very consistently all year.”

And Fleetwood is excited to be again being paired with Woods and also on the day his son, Frankie celebrates his 1st birthday.

“It doesn’t get any better playing in my first Ryder Cup and with Tiger as an opponent,” said Fleetwood.

Tiger Woods and Patrick Reed

“If you said my first Ryder Cup match, I couldn’t pick a better person to play with. We get on great. I love this guy, and he’s pretty good at golf, too.

“You know, it’s a massive match, of course it is, but they are all going to be big, and of course everybody is looking at Tiger’s return. But, you know, for us, when we get to that golf course and when we get on the first tee, it’s down to what we do, and you know, we’ve practiced our whole lives for this and we are just going to play our game and hopefully that will be good enough at the end of it.”