DAVIS LOVE’S jubilant American team shrugged off an early European onslaught to romp to victory in Minnesota, and take possession of the Ryder Cup for the first time since 2008.
After the Miracle at Medinah the last time the competition was played on American soil, there was to be no Hallelujah at Hazeltine, even though Europe took three of the first four points on offer.
In the end, the Americans clinched victory with four matches still out on the course.
And there was a certain irony in the fact that it was last minute choice Ryan Moore who landed the decisive blow, winning the final three holes to come from two down to beat Lee Westwood on the final green.
That took the home team to 15 points, and probably signalled the end of Westwood’s Ryder Cup career –as a player at least – as well as the end of Europe’s three-match winning run.
If Europe were to defy overwhelming odds for a second time in four years, they needed their top six players to sweep all before them – and hope that inspired their weak lower order against nervous opposition.
But after a few defiant blows from Henrik Stenson, Thomas Pieters – Europe’s shining light in this dismal performance – and Rafa Cabrera-Bello, the scoreboard quickly turned as red as European captain Darren Clarke’s face.
Red is the American Ryder Cup colour as well as the ‘power colour’ associated with Tiger Woods, who watched on with an ever-widening grin as the home team made certain their three point overnight lead would prove the platform for an emphatic victory.
This was only the second time this century the USA have won the Ryder Cup –and Woods, 40,missed both victories through injury.
Maybe they had better make sure he is not fit enough for consideration when they defend the trophy in Paris in two years’time.
Unless you were an American supporter, this predictable final day will be best remembered for one of the Ryder Cup’s great individual battles, featuring a pumped-up Rory McIlroy and an even more excitable Patrick Reed.
You would never have known there was a whole Ryder Cup being fought out behind them. For the men leading out the European and American teams, this was personal.
It was a no holds-barred, kicking and scratching allowed, fight to the finish.
The two men who had dominated the first two days at Hazeltine were both desperate to make a point, in addition to securing one for their team.
And their shoot-out in the singles lived up to its billing, with brilliant shot-making and sensational putts accompanied by a tidal wave of raw, fist pumping emotion.
Both men screamed themselves hoarse as they poured in birdie putts – and in Reed’s case one for a spectacular eagle after he had driven the 303 yards par four fifth hole.
Each heroic feat was followed by play-acting worthy of a pantomime villain, with the men sharing centre stage wagging fingers at each other, telling each other – and the crowds – to shh, and almost offering to settle it with a bare-knuckle scrap.
The excitement generated by the four hole stretch kicked off when Reed drove his ball to within five feet of the flag on five was the equal of anything the Ryder Cup has ever produced.
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McIlroy lost that hole despite making a birdie - and he failed to win any of the next three, despite making birdies at every one of them as well.
It was glorious high-octane golf at its very best, with both men trading blow for blow, most memorably when they came to the par three eighth.
McIlroy under-hit his tee shot, but then holed a monster sixty footer for his two, and celebrated with a series of furious fist pumps that had everyone in a fifty yard radius nervously taking a couple of steps backwards.
Reed was thirty feet from the flag, but sure enough he answered McIlroy’s birdie with one of his own, before turning to his opponent to let him know that anything he could do….
As McIlroy waited for Reed by the side of the green, there was a fleeting concern that they might actually square up.
Instead they grinned, offered each other a gentle knuckle rub, and headed for the ninth tee patting each other on the back to acknowledge just how great this battle had become.
That wonderful piece of sportsmanship added to the incredible spectacle, and reminded everyone what the Ryder Cup stands for – fearsome rivalry combined with the realisation that when the dust settles, this is about loving sport, not making war.
Both McIlroy and Reed were exhausted by their superhuman efforts on the front nine, but it was the American who found something extra to grind out a final hole victory..
At 27, McIlroy is only a year older than Reed, and while the American’s record in the Majors cannot hold a candle to that of the European No1 it is a different story in the Ryder Cup.
While McIlroy has already captured four of the game’s biggest prizes –an Open, a US Open and two USPGA titles - Reed has not even posted a ten ten in any of his first 13 Majors
But when continents collide, you sense that this is just the start of a ferocious rivalry that will run and run.
And if this was a taste of things to come, we are all in for a treat –not just in Paris, but for plenty more Ryder Cups after that.
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