Torrance strategy pays rich dividends

RYDER CUP: Sam Torrance's decision to load his heavyweights to the top of the order worked like a dream. Unlike Brookline three years ago, when the Americans gathered a head of steam by dominating the opening singles, the momentum was with the Europeans.

Call it stubborness, or sheer doggedness; call it what you like. Whatever it is, the Europeans have it. It's an ability to do what it takes to win matches when you're supposedly outclassed and outranked. It's an ability to ignore your pre-destined path. It's an ability to turn the world on its head. Yesterday, on a glorious autumnal day at The Belfry in the heart of old England, Europe found a way to win the 34th Ryder Cup; and there was nothing complicated about the solution to the riddle.

It simply involved playing better golf, mano-a-mano, than the players of the United States. It involved ignoring the statistics that told them that traditionally the Americans were stronger in singles combat. So it was that Europe - for only the third time in the Cup's history - proved superior in singles, winning the final segment of team golf's greatest competition by 7½ to 4½ and taking the match by 15½ points to the USA's 12½.

Before they went out, US captain Curtis Strange had told his men to "listen for the quiet," which would mean they would be in the ascendancy. Instead, all they heard were huge roars that resounded around the course as Europe's top guns were out with all guns firing.

The adrenalin rush worked its way down the order from Colin Montgomerie, the unquestioned on-course leader of the team, and playing in the first singles match. It spread swiftly and successfully, to the extent that Europe took four of the top six matches and halved another. It spread so that Phillip Price, the last man to book his place through the qualifying system, and ranked 119th in the world, could beat Phil Mickelson, the world's number two, without recourse for going beyond the 16th green. And it meant that Europe had already regained the trophy by the time that the world's number one golfer Tiger Woods made the last gesture of the match by taking up Jesper Parnevik's marker on the 18th green and calling their match a halve.

There were many heroes, likely and unlikely ones, for Europe. Paul McGinley, with nerves of steel, rolled in the putt that won the Cup for Europe and his fortitude in that moment, knowing what was at stake, was symbolic of the entire team's gutsy performance. That 11-foot putt gave McGinley a halved match with Jim Furyk, and brought Europe beyond the winning post.

Europe's points were forged in different ways. Montgomerie was a 5 and 4 winner of Scott Hoch. Padraig Harrington was a 5 and 4 winner over Mark Calcavecchia. Bernhard Langer was a 4 and 3 winner over Hal Sutton. These matches gave the impetus to the home team, and the challenge was taken up by others. Thomas Bjorn was a 2 and 1 winner over Stewart Cink. And, perhaps most impressively of all, Price was a 3 and 2 winner over Mickelson.

Apart from the wins, the sum total was added to by halves from Darren Clarke, Niclas Fasth and, most crucially, McGinley, who came from two down with six holes to play to halve with Furyk. With Europe's win confirmed, Pierre Fulke and Davis Love, waiting and watching from the 18th fairway, and all square at the time, called their match a halve. Parnevik and Woods did make it to the 18th green, but that match too was called a halve as the spirit of the game that went AWOL in Brookline returned and this year's staging gave the Ryder Cup back its soul.

It was a day of magnificent matchplay, of tension and drama, where anything was liable to happen. On the sixth hole, Duval duck-hooked his drive onto the bank in the hazard - but not actually into the water - and his opponent Clarke took an iron for safety and promptly put his ball in to the water. The hole was halved in bogey fives. It was a day where Paul Azinger holed an outrageous bunker shot on the 18th, to force a halve with Fasth, just when it looked like the Swede would have two putts from the edge of the green to be the man to gain the winning point. It was a day when Price ran in a 25 footer for a winning birdie on the 16th. It was a day when McGinley holed a putt that won the Ryder Cup for Europe. "He just struck it so well, a perfect putt," said Harrington, who had raced to greenside to see it.

For the first time since 1991, the two teams started the singles level - 8-8 - and, historically, that has favoured the Americans. Not this time, however. Montgomerie's performance was impeccable. Prior to his singles, he arrived on the practice ground to discover 7,000 people in the grandstand and no other player on the tee.

On his third shot, he mishit and the ball hit a board. Someone in the crowd yelled that he could do that, and Monty invited him down to do so. It borke the tension, and Montgomerie was more relaxed on a course than he ever was. On the first, he was so pumped up in his role as on-course leader that he hit a three-wood 308 yards. He hit a sand wedge in, and holed the putt. "My job was to get some blue on the leaderboards," he remarked, a reference to the fact that Europe's figures were blue, and the Americans' red. He did just that, and the momentum was to stay with Europe for virtually the rest of the day.

Montgomerie was six under par in winning his match with Hoch. Behind him, Sergio Garcia was up for most of his journey but fell behind to David Toms - America's top points scorer with three and a half - and lost on the 18th when he was over ambitious and put his drive into the water, while Clarke was locked into a "game of nip and tuck" with Duval that was to finish as it had started, all square.

Langer, though, didn't put a foot out of place in beating Sutton. The German, playing in his 10th Ryder Cup, was five under for the 15 holes he needed to forge out a win, and Harrington, with some impeccable iron play, was four up at the turn on Calcavecchia, while Bjorn, despite a mid-round crisis, was never behind against Cink and closed out the match on the 17th.

With the so-called big guns doing their bit, the rookies followed. Indeed, Torrance's decision to blood all four prior to the singles proved to be wise; and the result was that the four Ryder Cup debut players were unbeaten in their singles.

Price, however, produced the real killer blow to the Americans. His win over Mickelson - playing 16 holes without dropping a shot, and holing his 25 footer to finish out the match - was crucial to the bigger picture. It meant that by the time that McGinley reached the 18th green, he knew what was needed.

"Do it for me, Paul," said Torrance as the player came up to the final green. He did, and how. Azinger's bunker shot in the previous match had suggested that maybe the momentum could yet swing back to the Americans. McGinley's fearless putt ended any possibility of that before the US team really had a chance to use it as a motivating factor.

It was Europe's day, a blue day.