When Europe captain Colin Montgomerie collected the Ryder Cup for his team after a thrilling weekend of golf, he declared it “the proudest moment of my golfing career”. This came from a man who has challenged for countless Major titles and has been one of Europe’s most successful Ryder Cup players. It was at that very point that you could tell how much this victory meant to the European team.
Two years ago, Europe, then captained by Nick Faldo, were decimated 16 ½ – 11 ½ by Paul Azinger’s brutal and powerful USA team at Valhalla Golf Club in Kentucky. That acted as a stark reminder that things needed to change in the European camp, so Montgomerie was drafted in to captain the 2010 team at Celtic Manor. In the two years that followed their humiliation at Valhalla, European golf grew to it’s strongest point in recent years. In the not-too-distant past, 6 of the world’s top 10 golfers were European, with players like Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Paul Casey climbing to career-high world rankings. As a matter of fact, at the time of writing, Westwood could have even displaced Tiger Woods as World Number 1. There can be no doubt that Europe were strong favourites coming into Celtic Manor this year, but all these ingredients still needed to be put together.
The European team didn’t change too much from the last face-off, the exclusion of world number 9 Paul Casey was the major talking point with Montgomerie choosing two-time Open Champion Padraig Harrington in favour of Casey in his wildcard picks. Coming in were in-form youngsters such as Martin Kaymer, Ross Fisher and the prodigious Rory McIlroy. Also added were brothers Francesco and Edoardo Molinari who, apart from sparkling individually on the European Tour, won the World Cup of Golf for Italy in matchplay format. As far as the Americans were concerned, the main headline of their team was undoubtedly the return of Tiger Woods. The world number 1 hadn’t yet rediscovered his form after a long break from the game due to personal problems, but captain Corey Pavin obviously saw enough to award Woods a wildcard. There was a mixture of newcomers such as Ricky Fowler, Bubba Watson and Matt Kuchar, these rookies were teamed with Ryder Cup veterans like Steve Stricker, Stewart Cink and the mercurial Phil Mickelson. The Americans were unlikely to surrender the trophy without a fight.
As is so often typical in British sporting events, however, the weather decided to poke its nose in. The Welsh rain meant that only four matches were completed on the first day, meaning The Ryder Cup was to be extended, for the first time ever, to a fourth day. Despite America winning three of the four sessions of play, it was the Europeans who held a crucial 3-point advantage going into the final session of singles matches. This was after Europe won 5 of the 6 matches in session 3, the other being halved. A topsy-turvy day of singles meant that the scores were tied at 13 ½, the final match, Europe’s Graeme McDowell against America’s Hunter Mahan, deciding the fate of the Ryder Cup. Roared on by a partisan crowd, McDowell birdied the 16th, meaning he was two up with two holes to play and was guaranteed at least half a point. However, if the match was halved the US would retain the Cup, so McDowell had to win. When Mahan’s putt to save the match, and the Cup, rolled agonizingly past the hole, Celtic Manor erupted and the emotion was etched all over Colin Montgomerie’s face. The weather had threatened to ruin it, but the tie turned into one of the great Ryder Cup clashes of all time.
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