Surely the best of years for some

Golf:A week at The K Club will be the highlight of some players' careers, writes Philip Reid

By hook or by crook, it seemed, the great Irish public managed to get a ticket. If Dr Michael Smurfit's prediction that they'd swim across the Liffey if necessary to view the Ryder Cup was obstructed by the erection of a perimeter fence and the implementation of an exclusion zone that made Fort Knox's security measures pale in comparison, the crowds that ultimately managed to get bone fide entry into The K Club in September were not entirely of the prawn sandwiches brigade.

No, as ever, whether it was through luck in the internet lottery or getting tickets from friends or relatives, those who descended on Straffan in Co Kildare for the Ryder Cup turned the hallowed turf into an arena where for three days of practice and three days of competition an atmosphere more akin to that of a crammed football stadium was created. It was noisy and raucous and wonderful.

It was emotional, too, especially for the three Irish players in Europe's record-breaking team, who were claiming golf's most cherished team trophy for a third-successive time. For Darren Clarke, playing as a wild card pick just six weeks after the death of his wife, Heather; and for Paul McGinley and Padraig Harrington, the pair who had become the public images of the event, their faces appearing on TV and newspaper ads and billboards - even on ads placed above urinals in the toilets at the country's airports.

For McGinley, it was not a good year, but the Ryder Cup made it a great year. "At the end of my career, I'm going to look back on 2006 and it will stand out like a beacon because of the Ryder Cup, because of how well it went and how well I played.

"There was not a player who played there, from either team, who didn't think it special. It was like an All-Ireland final day that lasted all week, and it was a great thrill for me to play in front of a home crowd. No matter what happens in the future or has happened in the past, 2006 will be a very special year in my career because of the Ryder Cup's success."

To be sure, the Ryder Cup also provided a high for Clarke, who emerged with three wins from his three matches in Europe's 18½ to 9½ victory, which equalled the record winning margin by Europe over the US set in 2004 in Detroit.

No fewer than six European - Clarke, Lee Westwood, Luke Donald, Jose Maria Olazabal, Paul Casey and David Howell - were undefeated in the match, while Sergio Garcia managed four points from five to tie Westwood as the team's leading points winner.

Ironically, Harrington's individual points return was the poorest of the 12 players, acquiring just half-a-point.

But he was very much a part of the team effort, and he carried superbly the impetus created by the Ryder Cup into the latter part of the PGA European Tour's season that brought with it a victory in the Dunhill Links, head-to-head with Tiger Woods, and a runner-up finish in the Volvo Masters that enabled him to become just the third Irish golfer in history to win the European Tour Order of Merit title.

Of the year, Harrington remarked: "It's been great. You know, I played my best golf at the start of the year and I got no results. That was frustrating. Then, at the end of the year, all the results came at once and that was great, very satisfying. I've taken a lot from 2006 that I feel I will be able to take into next season.

"I've made some good progress in terms of my golf game and my approach to the game. It certainly worked well towards the second half of the year, and hopefully I can take the playing of the first three months and the mental attitude of the last six months into 2007. I'm very keen on what is coming up."

Although it turned into a spectacularly good year for him in securing the European Tour money list, Harrington, like McGinley, reflects on the Ryder Cup at The K Club with a great sense of satisfaction. As he put it, "nobody could have wished for it to go as well as it did, especially considering there was a storm that week. The crowds were magnificent, unbelievably good. Everything just seemed to fall into place.

"It really was an exceptional week. I'll look back on it as a highlight in my career. As time goes by, I think that it will become the highlight of my career, without a doubt."

If Europe's win, built in stages over the first two days of fourballs and foursomes, and completed by a magnificent effort in the singles, made the 2006 Ryder Cup a memorable one from a playing point of view, so too did the atmosphere created by the crowds - unprecedented in the history of the match - succeed in making the match extra special.

As George O'Grady, the executive director of the PGA European Tour, reflected, "I think superlatives run out when you think of Ireland . . . the Irish Ryder Cup to me was the epitome to what the European Tour is about, played in the most wonderful atmosphere. The result was almost immaterial."

Once the match was over, and Tiger Woods, once again on a losing team in the Ryder Cup, moved on, it was to win the American Express championship at the Grove, outside London.

Although he had emerged as the US's leading points scorer at The K Club, Woods's best moments on the course in 2006 came as an individual, and he was to finish the year with no fewer than 11 wins, two of them in majors, at the British Open in Hoylake and the US PGA at Medinah.

Yet, as if to underline that there were more important things outside the ropes than inside them, Woods, who had lost his father and guiding light, Earl, in May, remarked when looking back on his efforts in 2006, "in the grand scheme of things, golf doesn't even compare to losing a parent".

2006 Majors

The Masters... Phil Mickelson

US Open... Geoff Ogilvy

British Open... Tiger Woods

PGA Championship... Tiger Woods