That sinking feeling

Europe 15 1/2
U.S. 12 1/2

Ireland’s Paul McGinley stepped boldly into the spotlight and will go down as the man who won the 34th Ryder Cup.
Even an event that places so much emphasis on the collective spirit can boil down to one moment, and McGinley’s came on the final green of his match here Sunday with Jim Furyk. On a dramatic day when Europe confounded the massed galleries at the Belfry by rattling America’s cage to such an extent that not even Tiger Woods was given an opportunity to influence the outcome, the Dubliner was faced with a 10-foot putt for the vital half point that would win the trophy for Europe.
The rest is now golfing history, as McGinley, in halving with Furyk, gave Europe an insurmountable 14 1/2 to 11 1/2 lead.
To cope with such a nerve-wracking challenge so confidently spoke volumes about McGinley’s temperament. After all, it was not as if he entered the Ryder Cup cauldron as one of Europe’s leaders. In fact, the 35-year-old Dubliner was coming off a miserable season of missed cuts and poor form. The high-pressure matches against the U.S., postponed following the Sept. 11 attacks, seemed as if they’d come a year too late.
But cometh the hour. Before the final day singles’ matches, which had seen Torrance sending out his big guns first, the four European rookies — Niclas Fasth, Philip Price, Pierre Fulke and McGinley — had breakfasted together. “One of us is probably going to be a hero,” Fasth remarked. Confident that his team’s early starters such as Colin Montgomerie, Sergio Garcia and Darren Clarke would establish the platform, the coup de grace might be applied by a lesser-known player.
As Europe edged nearer to their target, it appeared that it might be Fasth himself only for Paul Azinger to produce one of the all-time great bunker shots to deny the Swede. Amid unbearable tension, the dice then rolled McGinley’s way. Pitted against the redoubtable Furyk, as many as 60 places separating them in the world rankings, the Irishman holed bravely from 15 feet at the 17th to level the match.
“Coming up to 18, I saw Darren [Clarke] and Padraig [Harrington] and a few others, and you can tell when everyone is watching your game that it’s coming down to you,” McGinley said. “I didn’t want to see the scoreboards, but I knew for sure when I got to the green and Sam said, ‘Do it for me.’ I knew then the cup wasn’t won and it was down to me.
McGinley later explained he’d had almost the same putt during a European Tour event at the Belfry a couple of years ago.
“I knew the line, it was a matter of hitting it on the line,” he said. “Standing over the putt, I knew what was at stake. It wasn’t a mixture of nerves or fear, it was excitement, adrenalin, focus, all those things combined. This is my chance, this is my opportunity. I relished those things. I enjoyed it.”
If the triumph was conclusively Europe’s — U.S. captain Curtis Strange admitted his players were on the wrong end of a “butt-whipping” — the Irish tricolors suddenly emerged when McGinley’s putt ran unerringly into the middle of the hole. For Clarke, Harrington and the man himself had all played differing, but vital, roles throughout the three days of competition.
McGinley’s moment brought back memories of other Irish golfers who had left their marks in a big way at the Ryder Cup. There was Eamonn Darcy’s putt at Muirfield Village in 1987 to ensure that Europe won the trophy for the first time in America; Christy O’Connor Jr.’s famous two iron to defeat Fred Couples at the Belfy in 1989, and Philip Walton’s victory over Jay Haas at Oak Hill in 1995 to deliver another European victory.
“I don’t know what it is about the Ryder Cup and Ireland, but it’s an event that really inspires us,” McGinley said. “Christy’s done it, Darcy’s done it, Walton’s done it. And now I had the opportunity to do it and I took it. First of all, it was great to have the opportunity, and, secondly, that I had the nerve to do it. The support was tremendous though, for a while it was like playing in the middle of Ireland.”
A former Gaelic football star with the Ballyboden St. Enda’s club in South Dublin. McGinley’s promising career was cut short at 17 by a serious knee injury and he then turned all his attentions to golf. A modest enough four handicap at that stage, he soon improved enough to be awarded a scholarship to the University of San Diego. The upward curve continued with Walker Cup recognition in 1991 against a US team that included Phil Mickelson and David Duval.
But since turning professional, he seemed destined to frustratingly short of the skills necessary to be deemed a truly world-class player. McGinley wasn’t a journeyman, but he wasn’t earmarked to contend in major championships or to hole the winning putt at a Ryder Cup. He teamed up with Harrington to win the World Cup at Kiawah Island in 1997 won a couple of European Tour events and had an impressive 2001 season to earn his Ryder Cup selection.
However, since then his game had stalled, so much so that he was regarded as a possible weak link before the Belfry. That now has all changed. He performed particularly well in the Saturday fourballs with Clarke to gain a half with Scott Hoch and Furyk, and then came that putt.
Furyk said he didn’t know McGinley at all before the event, but that he now regarded him as a “gentleman and a friend.” Sometimes nice guys do finish first.