“This is the greatest moment of my golfing career”, the words of Europe Captain, Colin Montgomerie after his team regained the Ryder Cup from America at Celtic Manor today and who are we to disagree with that.
What a day of golf and drama it turned out to be.
I went on Sunday so I was entitled to go back to witness todays play. But due to me stupidly thinking Europe only had to turn up to win and on the back of a long 14 hour day ending in me getting home at 9.30 on Sunday night and the thought of having to get up at 5.30am to do it all again, I decided against it.
I don’t now regret that decision. Honestly!
Never mind, at least on Sunday I got to see the end of the 3rd session with Europe winning 5.5 of the 6 points available, the session that turned the match Europe’s way in my opinion.
I really am pleased for Monty, this is surely the major that he never won. He has been such a great player in previous Ryder Cups and this is the icing on the cake of Monty’s brilliant Ryder Cup career.
I have always said that if Monty could use four of his Ryder Cup performances in a major, he would have converted one of those second places to a victory.
I know Monty isn’t everyones cup of tea and he can be very petulant at times. I always cringe at the sight of that footage when he turned on a TV cameraman and told him “just remember you’re only here because of me”. It was the bad side of Monty and I’m sure he regrets that incident and many of his other similar performances.
But all in all I think Monty seems a good guy. This is backed up by his continued tributes to Seve Ballesteros over the week which were very humble and emotional.
I watched the highlights on TV tonight and could see that there was a lot more to the day than just a spectacular close finish.
There was some high quality stuff played out there. The standard of the golf between Luke Donald and Jim Furyk was outstanding. We also had Rickie Fowler’s comeback for a draw and Tiger Woods played a great round and looked back to his best.
Then there was Graeme McDowell, how cool did he look in finishing the job, even though he admitted afterwards that he was far from the ice cool figure he cut.
McDowell was chosen to play at 12 for a reason and he proved up to the task by getting Europe over the line. It caps an outstanding year for the Ulsterman after also winning the US Open.
In fairness to them, the USA team gave Europe nothing today. They came out fighting and really made a match out of it. I have to admit, I was guilty of thinking a European victory was a mere formality and they proved me wrong.
Despite all the crap written and said about the time of the year it was played, I believe the tournament was a success. Yes, the weather didn’t help, but in the end we had a great tournament with some great golf and a tense finish.
And Europe won, so what more could we ask for!
