by Justin Doyle
The Europeans cut a 2-down deficit to just one with an impressive birdie on the 16th but Rory’s birdie attempt on the par-three 17th slid just by the edge. It was another tight encounter that went the distance with the Americans playing 1-up at the last.
On the 18th veteran Furyk, who has come under intense scrutiny for his lacklustre record in the Cup, zipped a sand wedge from a fairway bunker to put his partner in prime putting position.
Snedeker, who made the team on account of his tremendous putting, rolled the putt to within gimme range to close out a 1-up win. It had been a bad morning for Europe, similar to the previous afternoon, as the States stretched their lead to eight to four.
In the afternoon fourballs it looked like curtains for Europe when Bubba Watson and Webb Simpson hammered Rose and Molinari 5 and 4, which preceded Dustin Johnson and Matt Kuchar’s last gasp 1-up win over a desperately unlucky Colsaerts and Lawrie.
’10-4, over and out’ as the radio call signals the end. Next up were the bruised and battered Woods and Stricker versus Donald and Garcia. This match gave Olazabal and Europe real hope as all four golfers had been struggling thus far, particularly Woods and Stricker.
It was a 50/50 match that Europe had to win. If they lost, United States may as well have been crowned champions. It was that simple. Europe initially answered Ollie’s call. They battered the Americans for the first half.
Thanks in large part to consecutive birdies from Donald on the eighth and ninth, Europe held a commanding 4-up lead. Then at the 10th, Tiger responded with his first birdie of the day. Stricker hit another birdie at the 12th and when Woods birdied 13 Europe were just 1-up.
Donald took the wind out of their sails with a birdie on the 15th after Tiger had a disappointing miss. But Woods came back on the 16th with his fourth birdie on the back nine to bring the Americans even closer at just 1-down.
The pressure was very much on Europe. In a match they had to win, they had squandered a 4-up lead and all the momentum was with Woods and Stricker. Then, after Garcia missed his birdie on the final hole, Stricker stepped forward with a birdie putt to halve the match.
He missed! The ball shaved the hole and to Europe’s immense relief, they won 1-up. It was 10-5 to the Yanks and all eyes would now switch to McIlroy and new partner Poulter.
Chapter 7
Rory Avoids Ryder Disqualification!
(2012 Ryder Cup Part 2)
Rory McIlroy would go on to create one of the most bizarre and unprecedented final day incidents on the climactic Sunday of the 2012 Ryder Cup, but before that, he was involved in one of the all-time greatest Ryder Cup matches on the Saturday evening. It was an epic.
Sergio Garcia and Luke Donald were pitted against Woods and Stricker in a must-win match to prevent Europe falling 11-4 down with one match remaining. There was huge relief as they held on to win on the 18th after Stricker’s birdie putt just missed.
That one game left involved McIlroy, minus his long term partner McDowell and now paired with Ian Poulter. Olazabal left out G-Mac who was suffering from fatigue after a below average display in his losing morning foursomes.
Playing Jason Dufner and Zach Johnson, the European pair did not seem to be gelling very well as Dufner and Johnson led for much of the rubber. Rory and Ian were 2-down through 12 holes.
Poulter then rolled in a beautiful long birdie on the 14th and after winning the previous hole as well, they were all square. On the 15th, the Englishman saved the day again when playing a majestic bunker shot up and down for par.
Yet another birdie on 16, after a fantastic iron shot to 15 feet, put Europe 1-up for the first time after Zach Johnson’s effort for a half rolled past. With just two holes left to play, the United States battled back and birdied the 17th.
However, Europe had a birdie chance on that same hole. After a great iron shot to 10 feet, Poulter rammed home the putt and he roared and clenched his fist. It was only a half but his emotions told everyone that it was a step nearer to victory. There was one hole left.
‘The Poulter Show’ was even more remarkable considering the torrent of abuse and taunts that he, much more so than Rory, was receiving from disrespectful American ‘fans’ hiding in the cover of large crowds.
Dufner and Johnson would not give up. Disgruntled at losing their two hole lead and riled by Poulter’s deranged eyes and clenched fists, they stood firm with terrific resolve. So much so that when Dufner rolled in a marvellous birdie on that final hole, America went wild.
They looked very likely to secure a half and maintain the five point lead they had coming into the match. It was well into evening now and the dew was setting on the grass which made Ian Poulter’s next putt even more difficult.
Again, it was for a half but a half to give Europe a 1-up win. It was a putt of fully 10 of the longest feet Poulter, McIlroy and Europe had ever seen. On the plus side, he was in the zone. His adrenalin was sky high and he was playing brilliantly.
Make the putt, and Europe would be 10–6 behind overnight going into the last day Singles. Miss it, and America would get a crucial half-point and that five point lead. TV cameras, press cameras and microphones awaited the moment as he stood over the ball.
All the players and captains from both teams were gathered on the green, standing next to friends, wives and girlfriends. ‘Sweet hair!’ someone yelled as he lined it up. Then just as his putter hit the ball, one last insult echoed out from somewhere, ‘Nice shoes!”
As the ball travelled you could hear hundreds of motorised zooms from cameras like a swarm of bees. It fell in the hole. There were shrieks, gasps and groans from the hugely partisan crowd and yelps and cheers from the European contingent.
Poulter turned around and as McIlroy walked swiftly over to offer an outstretched wrist, and then to hug him, the look from Poulter said it all. The mad stare from his eyes went straight through Rory as if saying to him ‘who are you – where did you come from?’
It was as if he was so totally focussed on sinking the putt that he had no connection whatsoever to his team mate. He was in a different world. His body was drugged with such a toxic mix of adrenalin, euphoria, determination and relief that he was numb.
By God what a performance from Poulter that day! From Rory as well – and from Garcia and Donald – but everything depended on Poulter sinking that putt. 10-6 down, they still had a chance and the efforts of Poulter would do nothing but inspire Europe.
A third match for Poulter and a 100% record of three wins. The way he was performing Olazabal would surely have to put him out as the lead man in the Singles the following day – or would he?
He was so reminiscent of Severiano Ballesteros. A paler version perhaps, but he had similar traits like his gritting of teeth and his dogged single-minded determination to win and get the job done. It was as if Seve had infiltrated his very being.
Later that evening after the European team had freshened up and eaten, Ollie called all the players into a room for the traditional final team talk. It was the most emotional Ryder Cup team meeting ever held and what came out of there were buckets of tears.
Olazabal called on his players to follow the spirit of Seve. What Poulter had shown, in that regard, the entire team was asked to follow suit. If each of them gave 100%, it was still possible they could win.
An Indian war dance; a call to arms; a call to battle – on Sunday, there would be no need for war paint on faces. Every last one of the 12 disciples would be armed with frightening eyes that would scare and stare the bejaysus out of the Yankees and Confederates.
Their concentrated minds and eyes – using Poulter as the flagship – would beat the Americans into submission. Staring, focussing, concentrating, achieving the victory and then it was meeting over, good night.
One wonders how Rory slept. As the final day singles teed off, Ollie buzzed around the place. His eyes were darting around looking and observing. Every now and again he would ask a caddy, a golfer or anyone, in his Spanish twang, ‘have you seen Rory?
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Maybe McIlroy was on the range; maybe the putting green or perhaps he was in any number of quiet corners giving a radio or television interview. ‘Ah don’t worry Ollie, he’s around somewhere – how is Luke Donald performing?’
Luke was first man out at 11.03 am against Bubba Watson and would be followed 11 minutes later by Paul Lawrie and then 11 minutes after that by Rory. But Olazabal knew something was wrong. With all his enquiries completed, Rory was not on the golf course.
In fact, McIlroy was still in his hotel room! He had misjudged his tee time by fully one hour. Whatever he was doing in there, he was oblivious to all the missed calls on both his mobile and the room phone at his bedside.
Perhaps he was listening to music on his head phones or taking a shower. When he was finally reached, he got the most almighty shock of his life. The voice on the other end was his manager Conor Ridge who told him he had less than half an hour ‘til play.
If he was late, he would forfeit a point to the United States and almost certainly hand the Ryder Cup to them. Forfeiting his match would be a catastrophic disaster not even worth thinking about. A career blighted by infamy.
Rory explained later how he had so clumsily miscalculated his tee time. He told everyone consistently that he had seen his tee time as 12.25. In point of fact, his tee time was 11.25 am. But he was right – he did see 12.25 and this is why:
Most of the major news channels in the US are run by NBC or Fox who have their headquarters in New York City. Any times they give – or have down in information like sub titles and teletext – are in Eastern Time.
ET incorporates 17 US States including the East Coast of Canada. They are one hour ahead of where Rory was in Chicago. He was in Central Time zone. So wherever Rory saw his 12.25 tee time, he read it or heard it from an ET source.
He arrived at 11.14 just as Lawrie and Snedeker were teeing off. As he scrambled out of the Police car, a crowd of American fans saw him and started chanting ‘Central Time Zone’! He smiled with embarrassment and held his hand up to acknowledge them.
Had his patrol car become stuck in traffic, and Rory arrived on the tee at 11.26 which was one minute after his tee off time, he would still have been allowed to play. But 11.30 or thereafter would have been curtains. Top referee John Paramor explained it to me:
With regard to Rory arriving late on the tee, we would have used Rule 6-3a in the Rule book - loss of first hole up to five minutes and thereafter DQ. We used to use a graduated scale of penalty but that was some time ago.
In other words, Rory not being on time at 11.25 still meant he would have been allocated an additional five minutes for the loss of the first hole – i.e. Bradley 1-up (strokeplay = two-shot penalty). If there was no sign of Rory after five minutes, he would have been disqualified.
Later he told the press corps how he had got there so quickly. He explained:
I was just casually strolling out of my hotel room when I got a phone call saying ‘you have 25 minutes to get here’. I have never been so worried driving to the course. Luckily there was a state trooper outside who gave me the escort. If not I would not have made it on time. I was putting on my golf shoes in the car beside him.
The warning signs were also there for Rory in a previous escape. Earlier in the season when he won his second major the USPGA by eight shots, there was a weather delay. So he decided to go to his Florida home to sleep and come back later.
In that USPGA at Kiawah Island, he had played nine holes of his third round and so had to play 27 on the last day. So he dashed from Charlotte, South Carolina to his home in Florida.
That 600-mile trip to his plush new $11 million dollar mansion in Palm Beach Gardens, next to the Jack Nicklaus owned ‘Bear Club Golf Club’, takes 10 hours by car or two hours flying. He revealed:
Something that people don’t know is that I went back home. Everyone was talking about how I showed back about half an hour before my tee time on the last day. I actually had a nap and my dad had to come and wake me up because I overslept. He said to me: ‘Rory, you realise you have to play golf this afternoon.’ I didn’t know where I was!
Those shaves were really too close for comfort but the buck really stops with ‘Ollie’. How a Ryder Cup Captain, who held such an emotive meeting with his team the night before, could allow this was baffling.
A Ryder Cup Captain should always have his team assembled at all times. It is after all only three days every two years. Players support each other when not playing so they should be assembled together on the morning of play.
Colin Montgomerie should really have directed his comments at Olazabal and the Vice Captains when, on hearing about McIlroy’s late arrival, ‘Monty’ told a reporter: ‘That is quite ridiculous at this level. It’s quite unbelievable for the world number one.’
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Luke Donald may have been Europe’s first player on the tee in the final days play, but it was the second man out, Paul Lawrie, who got Europe off to the perfect start and won them their first point. The Scot thumped Brandt Snedeker 5 and 3.
He was 4-up on the American with four holes left to play and he won it at the 15th to be 5-up with just three holes left. It was also his second singles win from two played after hammering Jeff Maggert 4 and 3 in 1999 where he also enjoyed a foursomes and fourball win with Monty.
Donald held off Bubba Watson 2 and 1 to secure Europe’s second point in a row. The score was 10-8 and Europe were right back in it. But there were still a lot of matches out on the course that were too close to call, which meant the US still held a big advantage.
Two games were done and dusted and all eyes now turned to Rory versus Keegan Bradley. The two ‘Irishmen’ had contrasting fortunes over the previous two days. Keegan won three out of three points. Rory won two and lost two.
There was nothing to separate them past the halfway stage but Bradley was just not in the same form as previously. It was noticeable that he was struggling very badly with his irons.
Rory won back-to-back holes on 13 and 14 to go 2-up and the Northern Irishman finished the tie on the par-three 17th hole with a par. Incredibly the Europeans were now just a point behind trailing 10-9.
Attention now turned to ‘Mr Ryder Cup’, as some were now calling him. Ian Poulter was at it again. He was involved in a titanic duel with former US Open champ Webb Simpson and as only to be expected, it went right to the wire.
However, as he shook hands with Simpson earlier that day to begin ‘Match Number Four’, he had to endure more taunts from the crowds again. Let Paul Hayward of the London Telegraph describe his walk to the first tee:
The Chicago crowd knew how to taunt Ian Poulter. ‘Major winner, major winner’, they chanted, as Webb Simpson, America’s US Open champion arrived on the first tee for their singles match. They mocked Poulter’s record in the big four stroke-play events as there was no mud they could throw at him with regard to Ryder Cups.
The American responded to the crowds urgings and was 2-up through six holes. Then another taunt cried out: ‘Hey Ian, where are your coloured shoes?’
But what the crowds failed to realise was that they were only fuelling his fire. They may have felt that they had a new ‘Colin Montgomerie’ to target, a new ‘Mrs Doubtfire’, and so they just could not contain themselves.
Poulter blotted it all out and he just focussed on the job against Simpson. So much so that when he birdied the 14th, he refused to concede the American’s five-foot birdie attempt on the same hole.
Incredibly, Ian Poulter, who went on a birdie blitz with Rory the previous day to haul Europe back from the brink of near certain defeat, then repeated the dose. Lightning struck the same bolt twice.
Unbelievably he birdied 14, then 15 and 16 to draw level, and then he won the 17th to take the lead and the 18th to close out a 2-up victory. Five birdies in a row! The Europeans on the side lines lifted him in the air.
With Europe now level at 10-10, Jose Maria Olazabal declared: ‘I think the Ryder Cup
should build a statue to him!’
The Americans were shell shocked and the Europeans were ecstatic. The team talk the night before was working. Could the unimaginable happen? Could Europe win? Were the Yanks bottling it?
Sheer bliss and joy abounded and rebounded throughout Camp Europe. Then the wise and sensible ones shushed the excited ones. And as if to show that chickens were not to be counted in advance, Dustin Johnson dampened and poured water on the great hopes.
With clubs looking like small wands in his hand, his magic was too good for another big hitter that day. He beat Nicolas Colsaerts 3 and 2. United States regained the lead again as concerned faces looked up at the scores of those remaining out there.
It was looking good for the US. Despite the great European comeback, America held a slim 11-10 lead after winning match number six with five matches completed. Europe had no comfortable lead in the other seven except for Lee Westwood who was 3-up on Kuchar.
In the fifth game ongoing, Mickelson was 1-up on Rose after 16 and it was very tight in the remainder involving Zach Johnson and McDowell, Garcia and Furyk, Dufner and Hanson, Stricker and Kaymer and the last match out, Woods and Molinari.
Phil Mickelson had two holes to play and if he hung on to win then America would need just two more wins and a half, or one win and three halves, to lift the Cup. It was looking good.
It was a humdinger of a battle between both and the following year they would be at it again in the US Open. The Englishman birdied from 20 feet on the first and also won the second after Mickelson found water.
The American coolly fought back to square the match only for Rose to eagle the seventh after a marvellous shot finished eight feet from the pin. ‘Lefty’ then won the eighth but was soon 1-down again at the ninth.
Rose failed to save par on the 11th and a great escape from a bunker on the 14th put Mickelson 1-up. On the 16th Rose sank a very important putt to deny his opponent a 2-up lead. Then a burst of drama arrived.