MOTHER MERCY, IT was not meant to be like this.
This was supposed to be the day the Europeans routed America’s hostility, no longer only chasing an elusive away victory but now by a record-setting margin. Instead, it went wrong gradually and then suddenly, with Europe’s titans razed one by one; red congealing on the leaderboard like blood on the screen of a horror movie.
The European players went to bed knowing they needed only two-and-a-half points out of 12 to retain the Ryder Cup and awoke needing only two, with Viktor Hovland’s neck injury forcing him to withdraw and thus halve his slated match with Harris English before it began.
But suddenly two points became an inconceivable, embarrassing long reach. Rose lost. Fleetwood lost. Fitzpatrick blew a monster lead to tie. McIlroy lost. Rahm lost so early he had to hitch a ride back to the clubhouse. Straka lost without seeing 18.
American momentum had by then the properties of gravity, dragging Europe down to stare an unthinkable humiliation in the face. The prospect that these hectoring and entitled New York crowds might actually have their own way after all did not bear thinking about.
But Shane Lowry did as he often does on the big occasion: he fought the gravity with every fibre of his being. He made it on to the European team because of his quality as a golfer, but he makes the European team because of his quality as a competitor. You’ll find it in his bloodline, to the extent that Lowry sometimes gives the impression of a man whose primary misfortune is to excel at a lonely sport. The Ryder Cup, however, offers him a chance to share the dressing room his family could take for granted, and Lowry was magnificently unwilling to be seen to be at all ungrateful for the gift.
And so he resisted America’s terrifying momentum to birdie the 18th hole and gouge out the final half-point Europe needed to retain the Ryder Cup. He lost himself in a disbelieving ecstasy once he did so. It was quite the sight, the guy from Offaly leaping about having stolen the ultimate emotion from the thousands of Americans corralled above him.
That moment spoke to something of the Irish migrant history against the stacked odds in New York. But if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.
Four hours and 58 minutes earlier, Lowry serenely set sail down the adjacent first fairway. He went out in the eighth match, with Europe already ahead in four of the seven prior. Lowry then won the first hole to make it five from eight.
The lead looked sturdy too. Tommy Fleetwood was two-up against Justin Thomas, while Matt Fitzpatrick was in the process of robbing Bryson DeChambeau’s soul, winning five of the first seven holes.
Rory McIlroy’s All-Star duel with Scottie Scheffler became a bout between two exhausted heavyweights, with McIlroy finally looking emotionally beaten by the galleries’ deluge of disgrace as Scheffler continued to battle his quiet afflictions. The match was encapsulated by the fact Scheffler won the 10th hole with a bogey, after McIlroy had his tee shot disturbed by another moronic yell. Rory’s last weapon of defiance was his putter, but he was eventually worn down by it all.
The genius of the Ryder Cup format is that no Sunday lead is impregnable: there is always a chink of light through which the miracle can shine. The brawny Americans shoved their hands into the light’s gap and wrenched it wider than the Europeans ever thought possible. Through that gap shone a light so white-hot the Europeans wilted; it felt like the late-afternoon sun that turned the 18th green and its amphitheatre into a pressure cooker.
And so the light shone. Cameron Young roared ahead of Justin Rose, while Justin Thomas holed out from the sixth fairway and licked a finger and pointed it in the air. One. He then went One.Two.Three to stand on the 13th tee with a one-hole lead.
DeChambeau walks by his adoring fans. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
The fairways then shook with the great stomp of Bryson DeChambeau. Bryson began the day oddly reserved, binning his first-tee histrionics and barely acknowledging the crowd as he walked among them, staring ahead with steel-melting intensity. But slowly he unwound himself, rising from fist pumps to windmilled arms to, ultimately, a full Pinehurst-style explosion when he drained a monster birdie on 12. Fitzpatrick, however, instantly responded with a birdie of his own. That was to be his final card. Bryson kept on coming, taking a lathe to Fitzpatrick’s lead. Three became two on 14, which became one on 15. It vanished altogether on the penultimate hole. That dragged a now pallid Fitzpatrick to the 18th, where the crowds were now dizzy with far-fetched desire.
Justin Rose himself staged a remarkable comeback to claw back a three-hole deficit against Cameron Young, but it was the latter who kindled hope among the crowd by draining his birdie putt.
Next came Justin Thomas, now tied with Fleetwood. He left himself with 11 feet for a birdie to flip a second match to red, and poured it in. He pistoned his fists and the crowd convulsed in rhythm. Bryson then couldn’t convert for birdie, but his thriftiness in only allowing Fitzpatrick a half-point further stoked the crowd. Next to 18 came Scheffler, securing another point when McIlroy couldn’t convert from 50 feet.
Somewhere in a far corner of the course, Ludvig Aberg had daubed a sole streak of blue on the board by beating Patrick Cantlay. Elsewhere, though, all appeared to be unfathomably falling into place for the Americans.
Tyrrell Hatton missed from what felt like half an inch. Sam Burns went ahead of Bob MacInytre. Xander Schauffele routed the mighty Rahm 4&3. Russell Henley raced into a two-hole lead against Lowry. Rasmus Hojgaard sent a tee shot into a hospitality tent in another district.
The 18th crowds were by now giddy at the fact they weren’t watching anything. Xander dusted Rahm on the 15th green, and Spaun did for Straka on the 17th.
But Lowry won the 15th hole to give himself a chance to be the man to try to return to 18. He then stitched his approach on 16 to two feet: a miracle in the circumstances, but not the only one to which the 40-deep crowds at the green bore witness; Henley holed from 16 feet. Lowry had to halve the 17th to make it to the final stretch, and Henley cranked up the pressure by forcing him to putt from less than four feet. Is it possible for anyone to make a breath sufficiently deep? Lowry’s putt ringed around the hole and seemed to flirt forever with lipping out, only to decide at the final moment to drop. Karma perhaps for Lowry’s forbearance through the maddening crowds.
Europe’s numbers-runners were seeing their many paths to victory erode before them. Hatton missed a chance to go ahead of Morikawa and ease the frittering nerves. MacIntyre sent a drive wildly left and the crowd cheered as soon as they saw his outstretched arm. Griffin took the lead against Hojgaard. More Red.
Lowry, though, striped his drive down the final fairway. Henley went left and into the bunker. Lowry walked down the fairway and turned to his caddie and said he was about to have the chance to do the greatest thing in his life. Henley somehow sent his bunker shot to within 10 feet. Lowry then stood up and stuck his to five feet. What you can do, I can do twice better.
Henley left his putt short, finally interrupting the American sorcery.
Thus it fell to Shane. He wandered about the green, doing his best to push aside his awesome longing to be able to read the putt. As he steadied himself over the ball, one more drunken fan in the crowd yelled a grotesque insult about Lowry’s wife, and this was the last thing Lowry heard before his own, primal roar as he found himself gambolling madly across the green.
Shane Lowry was the bulwark against the fulminating crowds which finally broke. He sashayed about with a tricolour around his shoulders as the grandstands emptied, and as the tears leaked from his eyes, great rivers of American crowds streamed out of the exits, returning to the civilised lives from which they took such a lousy holiday this week.
Tyrrell Hatton went on to tie with Collin Morikawa to earn the extra half-point to change the Cup’s status from retained to won. Sam Burns then bogeyed the final hole to give Bob MacIntyre a closing tie, which at least meant Europe did not win because of Hovland’s injury. That the most unruly Ryder Cup in history would be decided by the only stiffed neck in Bethpage was an irony too far even for this spiteful rendering of the gentleman’s game.
But Hatton and MacIntyre did not face the packed stands, and they did not face the deadening pressure Shane Lowry faced. It was Lowry who had to defy the incipient disaster.
He said at the start of the week that he lives for the Ryder Cup.
Shane Lowry’s name now lives forever within it.
Written by Gavin Cooney and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won’t find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women’s sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here.
