Mark Garrod, Chicago
This was an American Ryder Cup team containing 12 of the world’s top 23 golfers.
They have earned €182m playing the game – and fortunes more in sponsorship deals and appearance fees.
For most of the first two days at Medinah they were brilliant. Far better than a European side struggling to come to terms with the Medinah greens and carrying, it seemed, too many players whose form had deserted them at the wrong time.
Oh well, home advantage is a big advantage. Never mind, there is always next time.
But out of the ruins of 10-4 down Jose Maria Olazabal summoned up the spirit of his late Ryder Cup partner Seve Ballesteros, the man who never gave up either in the sport that made him a darling of the fairways or in his private battle with a brain tumour that finally claimed his life in May last year.
Ian Poulter, more than anyone around today an embodiment of the passion with which Ballesteros revitalised the competition in the 1980s, started a fightback which carried Europe to an improbable and unforgettable victory.
Just after Luke Donald and Sergio Garcia had sent Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker to their third straight defeat – Donald’s tee shot once Woods had hit close on the 17th was one he should play over and over in his mind as he strives for his first major – Poulter took centre-stage.
Five closing birdies to narrow the gap to 10-6 revived memories of the United States winning from the same position in 1999 and changed the mood in the European camp.
Yes they still had a mammoth task on their hands, but to a man they felt it was do-able – and they went out and did it.
Suddenly they found the Americans were not as comfortable out there on their own as they had been in pairs. Jim Furyk returned to the player who blew the US Open in June and then, when one ahead with one to play in the Bridgestone world championship last month, double-bogeyed.
Behind him Stricker, another of Davis Love’s wild cards, had only to halve with Martin Kaymer – omitted from three of the four previous sessions – to leave the stage to Woods to become his side’s match-winner.
But Stricker bogeyed the 17th to fall behind and Kaymer, overcoming a flashback to fellow German Bernhard Langer’s missed putt at Kiawah Island in 1991, sank the six-foot putt on the last which kept the trophy in European hands.
Just like The Belfry in 2002 last man out Woods, the 14-major winning former world number one, was left redundant and, following his concession to Francesco Molinari, left to ponder a sixth defeat in seven Ryder Cups.
Since continental Europeans were included in the match in 1979 the contest has witnessed a succession of thrillers.
There was the “War on the Shore” decided by the very last putt 21 years ago, “Choke Hill” at Oak Hill in 1995 when the Americans crumbled from three points in front on the last day, the “Battle of Brookline” in 1999 when premature celebrations marred a record-breaking fightback by Ben Crenshaw’s team.
The Belfry has made heroes of Christy O’Connor Jnr, Jose Maria Canizares, Phillip Price and Paul McGinley and in 2006 Darren Clarke’s unbeaten performance on home soil six weeks after the death of his wife was truly remarkable.
Then came Graeme McDowell’s finish two years ago at Celtic Manor, but as a sporting comeback this performance will take some beating.
Just like the Europeans will at Gleneagles in 2014.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/YQG5xb5glag/post.aspx
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